BX  7233  .B4  S54  1872 

188?"'  "^"^  '^"<*'  1813 
■^^f^fffmons  of  Henry  Ward 


THE   SERMONS 


HENRY  WARD  'BEECHER, 

IN 

Plymouth   Church,   Bi^ooklyn. 

FROM     VERBATIM     REPORTS     BY     T.     J.     ELLINWOOD. 

"PLYMOUTH    PULPIT," 

FIFTH    SERIES- 

SEPTEMBER,    1870— MARCH,   1871. 


1 


00 


NEW-YORK: 

J.    B.    FORD    &    COMPANY. 

1872. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1872, 

B\    J.    B.    FORD   &   CO.  , 

in  rhe  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


University  Press:   Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co., 

Cam  BR  I DGE  . 


CONTEXTS. 


PAGB 

L  The  Growth  of  Christ  iiq-  us  (Gal.  iv.  19)        .       .7 

Lesson  :  Eph.  iv.    *HYM>fS :  142,  381, 1251. 

""IL  Sin's  Eecompense  (Prov.  v.  11-13)        ...        •        .25 

Lesson  :  Isa.  Ixxiii.  3-26.    Htmns  :  843,732, 500. 

.     III.  The  Sufficiency  of  Jesus  (Heb.  xii.  2)      ,        .        .39 

Lesson  :  Heb.  xii.  1-25.   Hymns  :  514, 247. 

IV.  God's  Love  Specific  and  Personal  (Gal.  ii.  20)    '    .    57 

Lesson  :  Isaiah  xlii.   Hymns  :  130, 513, 381. 

V.  The  Heavenly  State  (Matt.  xxii.  30)  ...    75 

Lesson  :  Kev.  v.   Hymns  :  125S,  1272,  "  Sliining  Shore." 

VI.  Future  Punishment  (Matt.  xxv.  46)     .        .        .     - .    99 

Lesson  :  Matt.  xxv.  14-46.    Hymns  :  25,  732,  383. 

VII.  The  Ministration  of  Pain  (Rom.  vii.  18)        ,        .    115 

Lesson  :  Romans  viii.  18-39.   Hymns  :  199,  905, 1257. 

Vni.  Selfish  Morality 133 

Lesson  :  Luke  xv.  11-31.   Hymns  :  1312, 865, 500. 

IX.  Importance  of  Little  Things  (Sam.  xiv.  43,  44)      .    147 

Lesson  :  Psalm  ii.   Hymns  :  060, 627, 372. 

X.  The  Training  of  Children  (Eph.  vi.  4)  ,    "    ,    167 

LesSon  :  Matt,  xviii.  1-10.    Hyjins  :  286,  925,  927. 

XL  Watching  with  Christ  (Matt.  xxvi.  40)    .        .        .    187 

Lesson  :  Cclossians  i.   Hymns  :  284, 769, 1323. 

^XIL  The  Tendencies  of  American  Progress         ,        ,    203 

Lesson  :  Isa.  Ix.    Hymns  :  IOCS,  10O4. 

\J  XIIL  The  Higher  Spiritual  Life  (Luke  iv.  14,  15)         .    22] 

Lesson  :  Acts  ii.  1-42.    Hymns  :  23,  430,  472. 

V.    The  Ground  of  Salvation  (Eph.  ii.  4-8)         .        ,    235 

liESSON :  Romans  v.    Hymns  :  269,  243,  233. 

♦  Plymouth  Collection. 


yi 


VI  CONTENTS. 

PAGB. 

XV   Individual  Responsibility  (Mark  viii.  17,  18)       .    251 

Lesson  :  Luke  xU.  29-50.    ♦Hymns  :  604,  883, 890. 

XVI.  The  Era  of  Joy  (Luke  ii.  10,  11)  ...    267 

Lesson  :  Luke  ii.  1-20.    Hymns  :  215,  212,  200. 

XVII.  Intensity  of  the  Spirit  (Matt.  xv.  25)  .        .    281 

Lesson  :  Luke  xviii.    Hymns  :  286, 130. 

XVIII.  Man's  Will  and  God's  Love  (John  xv.  5)    .        .    293 

lesson  :  1  Pet.  1.  3-25.    Hymns  :  255, 1241, 1259. 

XIX.  Making  Others  Happy  (Rom.  xv.  2,  3)  .        .    309 

Lesson  :  Rom.  sJv.   Hymns  :  1344, 898, 1262. 

XX.  The  Power  of  Humble  Fidelity  (Mark  xii.  41-44)  323 

Lesson  :  Isa.  Ivil.   Hymns  :  40, 843, 879. 

XXL  A  Plea  for  Good  Works  (Titus  iii.  8-14)     .        .    341 

Lesson  :  Rom.  xii.    Hymns  :  104, 173, 622. 

^   XXII.  The  Harmony  of  Justice  and  Love  (1  Tim.  l  15)     359 

Lesson  :  1  Tliess.  Iv.    Hymns  :  248,  771, 1323. 

Z/'  XXIII.  Love,  the  Common  Law  of  the  Universe  (1  Tim. 

1.5) 377 

Lesson  :  Psalms  clxviii.   Hymns  :  10, 597. 643. 

XXIV.  Self-Care,  and  Care  for  Others  (Phil.  ii.  4)      •    397 

Lesson  :  Matt.  vi.  19-34.   Hymns  :  218, 725,  lOU. 

XXV.  Labor  and  Harvest        .        .        ,       ,        .        .417 

Lesson  :  Luke  vii.  11-35.    Hymns  :  269,  T17, 755. 

XXVL  Ignorance  and  Helplessness  in  Prayer  (Eom. 

viii.  26) 433 

ZiESSON :  Bom.  vUi.  28-39.    HYMNS :  15, 531, 725. 
•  Plymouth  CoUiEcxioN. 


L 

The  Growth  of  Christ  in  Us. 


INVOCATION. 

Look  upon  us,  and  tben  our  light  shall  dawn,  and  our  day  begin,  O  thou 
loving  Father!  and  by  thy  love  bring  us  into  the  consciousness  of  our  own 
true  life.  Inspire  us,  that  all  the  thipys!  that  are  gracious  in  us— holy  aspira- 
tions, devout  love,  clinging  affectioai — may  rise  up  this  day  in  power;  and 
that  before  thy  presence,  and  in  thy  brightness,  all  care  and  sorrow  and 
trouble  and  temptation  may  sink  and  fall  as  the  waves  fiom  be&eath  thy 
feet,  as  the  storm  from  before  thine  eye.  And  so  grant,  we  pray  thee,  that 
in  the  communion  of  truth,  in  the  communion  of  prayer,  in  sweet  and  blessed 
fellowship  of  song,  in  the  offices  of  instruction,  in  meditation,  we  may  this 
day  grow  in  grace,  and  in  the  knowledge  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ;  to  whom,  with  the  Father  and  the  Spirit,  be  praises  everlasting. 
Amen, 
I 


i  \ 

VTHSOLOGICiiLi" 

THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRiSt"%  TiS!' 


"My  little  children,  of  -whom  I  travail  in  birth  again,  until  Christ  be 
formed  in  -vou."— Gal.  IV.,  19. 


No  one  can  fail  to  observe,  in  reading  our  Lord's  discourses,  how 
unlike  a  king  or  great  person  he  carried  himself  upon  earth  ;  how  he 
loved  to  bring  home  his  heavenly  nature  to  his  disciples  and  friends  by 
all  the  figures  and  symbols  which  belonged  to  domestic  life.  That 
which  belonged  to  us — whatever  was  human — he  selected  as  a  gar- 
ment, and  clothed  himself  with  it.  He  was  parent,  brother,  friend. 
He  was  for  the  hungry,  bread  ;  and  for  the  thirsty,  water.  He  was 
the  light — a  star  sometimes,  and  a  candle  at  other  times.  He  was  a 
vine.  He  was  a  husbandman.  He  was  a  shepherd.  He  was  a  mer- 
chant, a  rich  proprietor,  a  householder.  Almost  every  element  of  use, 
in  one  way  or  another,  he  attaches  to  himself,  either  as  a  title,  or  by 
some  parable. 

Into  this  peculiar  method  of  representation,  no  one  of  his  apostles 

entered  with  such  fullness  of  sympathy  and  such  richness,  as  Paul.     It 

would  be  intei'esting,  if  we  had  time,  to  run  through  the  variations 

which  Paul  produced  on  this  theme.     For  I  think  it  can  be  shown 

that  in  his  hands  there  is  scarcely  one  great  elemental  law,  hardly  a 

familiar  phenomenon,  in  the  world,  which,  in  the  Gospels  and  in  the 

Epistles  conjointly,  is  not  associated  tenderly  Avith  the  name  of  Jesus 

Christ.    Our  text  is  a  very  striking  instance  under  this  head.     Bold  as 

the  Hebrews  were  on  matters  where  we  are  exceedingly  sensitive,  it  is 

yet  without  offence  that  Paul  represents  himself  as  a  mother,  without 

saying  so.     He  says : 

"  My  little  children,  of  whom  I  travail  in  birth  again." 

^       They  were  carried  in  his  soul,  yet  unborn.     In  another  place  he 

Bays : 

*'  Though  ye  have  ten  thousand  instructors  in  Christ,  yet  have  ye  not 
many  fathers;  for  in  Christ  Jesus  I  have  begotten  you  through  the  Gos- 
pel." 

Kindled  with  this  imagery,  his  mind  shot  along  the  figure,  and 

took  another  form  of  it,  without  note  or  warning ;  and  he  says  that 

Christ  was  being  canied  in  them,  as  it  were,  a  babe  unborn.     They 

SvNiiAY Morning,  October  24,  1869.  Lesson:  Eph.  IV.  Hriuis  (Pljmoath  Collection), 
No8.  142,  381,  l;i5L 


8  TEE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  US, 

were  the  mothers,  and  Christ  was  to  be  born  into  their  souls.  Tlas 
having  Christ  in  us  you  will  all  recognize  as  a  not  unfamiliar  thought ; 
but  the  apostle's  idea  is  that  we  are  Bethlehem,  as  it  were — that  we 
are  the  stable,  as  it  were.  No,  we  are  the  mothei',  as  it  were.  Christ 
is  being  born  into  each  one  of  us,  severally,  a  babe ;  and  our  Christ, 
even  when  grown  to  years,  and  mature,  is,  after  all,  the  Christ  that 
was  born  in  us. 

Without  stoi:)ping  to  illustrate  other  points  in  the  figure,  we  shall 
carry  it  out  in  some  particularity  in  regard  to  practical  developments 
in  Christian  life  and  experience. 

Christ  was  God.  He  was  sent  to  interpret  to  men  God's  nature, 
his  disposition,  his  sympathy  and  love  ;  to  show  men  that,  on  the  very 
field  where  all  their  defeats  occurred,  it  was  possible  for  one  to  live 
purely  and  truly  in  his  body  and  in  his  circumstances.  Christ  took 
upon  himself  the  human  body.  In  Scripture  language,  he  was  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh.  He  took  upon  himself  the  form,  of  a  servant. 
He  was  very  God,  walking  in  the  limitation  and  circumscription  of  the 
human  body,  this  limitation  and  circumscription  making  him  man.  And 
there  is  no  other  manhood  which  is  like  that.  Our  manhood  is  but  a 
faint  and  far-ofi"  dream  and  image  of  that.  We  come  to  true  manhood 
only  when  we  come  to  it  through  divinity.  But  our  Saviour  did  not 
descend  from  heaven  like  a  sun  full-orbed,  glorious.  He  came  into  the 
world  as  a  babe.  He  went  to  the  lowest  bound  of  human  weakness. 
He  opened  the  door  into  life  through  which  every  babe  comes.  Nor  did 
he  then  suddenly  unsheath  his  bloom,  and  instantly  spring  up  in  fia- 
grant  beauty.  He  was  as  a  root  out  of  dry  ground,  according  to  the 
prediction  of  the  prophets.  He  was  a  babe.  He  as  a  babe  grew, 
came  into  boyhood,  and  passed  through,  gradually,  all  the  stages  of 
unfolding.  He  was  a  real  boy.  He  had  the  imperfections  and  limita- 
tions of  other  boys.  He  experienced  their  nascent  hopes  and  desires. 
Then  he  passed  to  immature  manhood  ;  and  then  to  full  manhood.  He 
went  through  a  long  line  of  natural  development,  that  he  might  be 
tried  just  as  we  are  tried. 

Now,  although  the  apostle  nowhere  carries  out  this  into  a  full  alle- 
gory, yet  it  may  be  clearly  seen  that  this  thought  dwelt  in  his  minu  ; 
viz.,  that  as  Christ  came  into  this  world,  and  was  first  a  babe,  and  then 
a  youth,  and  finally  a  man,  so  there  was  an  order  in  the  stages  of  our 
personal  experience ;  and  that  Christ  in  us  was  born,  first  as  a  babe, 
and  went  on  through  all  the  stages  of  youth  up  to  maturity  ;  so  that 
we  have  in  the  spiritual  experience  of  our  nature  the  pu.allel,  the  ana- 
logue, of  that  which  Christ  himself  went  through. 

At  its  first  entrance,  this  divine,  disinterested  and  authoritative 
love  in  the  human  soul  is  not  in  full  power.     The  first  experience  in 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  US.  9 

the  sou],  of  Christ,  who  is  the  spirit  of  love,  and  of  a  love  which  car- 
ries conscience  and  wisdom  with  it,  is  a  nascent  experience.  We  are 
babes  in  this  element.  Small,  is  it,  as  a  grain  of  mustard  seed.  Ob- 
scure, is  it,  as  the  hidden  yeast.  Helpless,  is  it,  as  new-born  infancy. 
When  a  child  is  born,  the  great  world  exists  and  is  organized  around 
about  it.  Here  are  tremendous  forces  of  every  kind.  Here  are  natu- 
ral lavrs,  and  secondary  laws  which  are  framed  by  men  for  the  pur- 
poses of  society,  and  which  are  second  only  in  force  and  necessity  to 
natural  laws.  And  the  child  is  ignorant  of  them  all,  is  helpless  before 
them  all,  and  must  lean  upon  the  bosom  of  another,  ana  learn,  little 
by  little,  first  how  to  control  natural  law,  and  then  how  to  control  civil 
law.  For  laws  are  not  masters,  but  servants,  and  he  who  knows  first 
how  to  obey  them  may  afterward  ride  them ;  and  they  will  carry  him 
with  the  power  that  God  has  infused  into  them. 

When  the  babe  first  comes  into  life,  everything  is  against  him.  All 
the  great  machinery  goes  grinding  and  thundering  by  it ;  and  the 
child  has  neither  knowledge  of  it^  nor  exjjerience  in  it,  nor  power  over 
it.  He  stands,  as  it  were,  outside,  waiting  to  be  indoctrinated  into  the 
conditions  of  the  world  into  which  he  comes.  So  it  is  in  the  infancy 
of  Christ  in  the  human  souk  All  the  channels  of  our  life  have  been 
filled  up.  And  this  divine  birth,  this  babe-experience,  as  it  were,  of 
Christ  in  the  soul,  takes  place  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  master  pas- 
sions organized,  by  a  character  already  ordained,  and  by  habits  already 
fixed  and  firm  and  operative.  And  that  element  of  Christ  which  is 
called  the  Christ  in  us,  that  new  disposition  in  us  which  is  like  him, 
is  to  pass  through  the  infancy  of  learning,  unfolding.  How  rightly  to 
understand,  how  rightly  to  act,  to  obey,  and  then  to  control,  is  to  be 
found  out  little  by  little,  and  by  just  such  steps  as  those  by  which 
infancy  finds  out  how  to  manage  the  world  that  is  round  about  it. 

The  first  estate  of  infancy,  therefore,  is  to  be  fed,  warmed,  nour- 
ished. It  is  not  to  be  thrust  out  on  the  errands  which  are  proper  to 
universal  manhood  in  its  maturity.  It  must  be  carried  in  the  arms,  or 
it  will  perish.  And  so  the  germs  of  Christian  life,  when  they  first  be- 
gin, are  but  germs,  tender,  and  needing  nourishment,  and  watching, 
and  care,  and  more  tfian  they  can  give  to  themselves.  So  that  they 
who  are  born  into  the  kingdom  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  are  not  fit, 
at  the  moment  of  their  conversion,  to  be  teachers  of  others.  They  may 
be  witnesses  of  what  Christ  has  done  for  them  ;  but  they  are  infants. 
They  are  but  just  born.  The  Christian  then  is  but  in  its  infancy.  As 
in  his  mortal  life  Jesus  was,  as  I  have  said,  a  boy,  a  youth,  so  there  is  a 
con-esponding  stage  in  the  normal  Christian  experience — a  stage  of 
hope,  eager,  expectant,  unqualified  by  experience,  but  fixed  by  zeal. 
This  is  that  stage  in  which,  having  gained  certain  degrees  of  power  and 


10  THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  US. 

knowledge,  mightily  set  on  by  buoyancy  and  hopefulness,  youth  plans 
and  executes,  full  of  the  glow  of  enterprise.  *The  virtues  at  that  time 
are  intensely  active.  The  faults  of  that  period  are  the  faults  of  over- 
stimulation;  of  untempered,  undisciplined  strength;  and  the  tempta- 
tions and  defeats  and  victories  are  marked  with  the  peculiarities  of 
youthful  immaturity.  They  are  unripe ;  and  their  sins  are  sins  of  un- 
ripeness. 

And  as  it  is  in  youth,  so,  precisely,  is  it  in  Christian  development. 
After  the  primal  birth  into  the  kingdom,  comes  the  youth  of  Christ,  as 
it  were,  in  men — the  limitations  of  unknowing,  inexperience,  strong 
zeal,  barrenness,  and  untempered  virtues.  There  are  stages  of  the 
soul's  development,  if  we  could  trace  them  out,  through  which  we  pass, 
that  precisely  correspond  to  certain  stages  of  the  outward  secular  life. 
Fiist  comes  the  childhood.  Then  comes  the  youth.  Then  comes  the 
manhood.  Then  come  consolidated  impulses,  Avhich  are  habits.  Then 
come  virtues,  which  have  cast  off  their  germ-forms,  half  grown  into 
perfect  symmetry.  Then  come  characters  with  strong  foundations. 
And  the  walls  of  the  mind  are  carried  up,  and  the  whole  structure,  more 
or  less  built  already,  tends  to  instant  completion  ;  to  full-developed 
power ;  to  strong,  rich,  ripe  joyousness  in  the  participation  of  life.  And 
there  is  precisely  the  corresponding  experience  in  the  development  of 
the  spiritual  life.  Christ  is  born  in  us  as  a  babe ;  and  then  there  is 
the  development,  through  youth,  to  full  manhood  in  the  Christian 
soul. 

This  great  truth,  therefore,  is  to  be  borne  in  mind,  that  Christian 
life  begins  at  the  point  of  weakness,  and  goes  on  by  regular  normal 
stages  to  maturity.  It  is  first  a  spark,  and  then  a  flame,  hidden  in  much 
smoke,  and  at  last  a  pure  and  glowing  coal. 

With  this  unfolding  of  the  primal  idea,  I  proceed,  now,  to  make 
some  applications. 

1.  Children  and  youth  may  become  disciples  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  may  be  safely  gathered  into  the  Christian  fold,  if  only  their 
parents  and  their  pastors  will  be  content  to  receive  the  babe-Christ  in 
•the  young  convert,  or  the  young  Christian.  Churches,  parents,  and 
teachers  are  to  bring  up  the  children  under  their  care  in  the  nurture  and 
admojiitlon  of  the  Lord ;  but  to  a  very  large  extent  Christians  have 
brought  up  their  children  in  the  hope  that  when  they  shall  have  arrived 
at  years  of  discretion  (which  are  usually  supposed  to  be  somewhere 
from  fifteen  to  twenty-one  years  of  age)  they  will  then  themselves  be- 
come Christians.  I  hold  that  it  is  possible  so  to  rear  our  children  that 
they  shall  be  converted  from  the  cradle,  and  gi-ow  up  in  the  nurture 
and  admonition  of  the  Lord — some  without  a  break,  and  some  sub- 
ject to  these  normal  disturbances  which  come  from  physical  causes  iu 


TEE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  US.  11 

the  readjastment  of  the  system  at  its  maturity.  If  Christian  parents 
and  Christian  teachers  were  consistent,  and  were  in  faith  of  the  true 
Clirist  Jesus,  I  believe  that  generations  of  children  might  be  brought 
up  who  never  would  know  the  point  at  which  the  transition  was  made. 
They  would  be  taught  to  love  Christ,  and  to  adopt  the  great  Christian 
element  of  character — love — and,  by  it,  to  cast  out  evil,  to  build,  and  to 
acquire  habits  and  experiences,  so  that  when  they  came  to  man's  estate 
it  would  not  be  through  all  the  tanglements,  besetinents  and  soil- 
ings of  an  ordinary  earthly  experience.  They  would  come  honorable, 
truthful,  loving,  full  of  faith,  full  of  hope,  full  of  purity,  from  the  cradle 
to  the  church.  And  I  do  not  simply  believe  this  to  be  possible  in  rare 
cases.  I  do  not  believe  there  will  ever  be  a  day  of  millenium.  I  dn 
not  believe  there  will  ever  be  a  prevalence  of  Chiistianity,  until,  instead 
of  trying  to  fish  for  the  few  adults  that  can  be  brought  from  evil  into 
good,  we  learn  how  to  take  life  at  its  beginnings,  and  to  train  genera- 
tions from  the  first  to  true  jnanhood,  passing  through  infancy  and  youth 
into  the  full  development  of  Christian  life. 

Persons,  we  all  know,  are  more  susceptible  at  the  early  age  than  at 
any  other.  Children  are  not  superior  to  men  in  knowledge,  nor  in 
strength,  nor  in  discrimination.  There  are  a  thousand  of  the  acquire- 
ments by  which  a  man  battles  with  the  world  that  they  are  not  supe- 
rior in.  But  there  is  one  all  important  principle  which  belongs  to 
childhood,  and  not  to  any  other  time;  viz:  that  peculiar  development 
of  the  soul  by  which  it  knows  how  to  take  hold  of  another,  and  to  bor- 
row its  light  from  that  other. 

To  borrow  an  orchard  illustration,  there  is  but  one  period  of  the 
year  in  which  you  can  graft  well.  It  may  be  possible  to  graft  success- 
fully at  other  times ;  but  there  is  one  period  when  you  must  make  the 
transfer  if  you  would  take  a  bud  from  one  tree,  and  graft  it  into  anoth- 
er, and  have  it  produce  its  kind,  and  do  the  best  that  it  is  capable  of 
doing.  There  is  but  just  one  season  when  the  bark  lifts  easily,  and  the 
staff  is  in  the  right  condition. 

There  is  a  time,  also,  Avhen  the  little  natures  bud  easily,  and  gi"aft 
easily.  It  is  possible  to  graft  them  at  other  tiines,  by  extra  elabora- 
tion ;  but  more  than  half  of  the  grafts  will  blow  out,  as  the  saying  is. 
Theic  is  a  period,  however,  in  which  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  will 
stick  and  grow.  For  all  the  adaptations  of  the  child  at  that  time  are 
such  as  to  incline  it  to  borrow  its  life  from  another.  It  feeds  upon 
another  instinctively.  It  is  a  little  parasite.  It  is  but  the  transfer  of 
that  winch  is  its  need  and  instinct  to  the  blessed  Saviom*.  And  then 
it  bccome,s  a  Christian  child.  And  so,  adhering  to  Christ  by  love  and 
by  trust,  and  drawing  its  little  life  from  Christ,  it  begins  the  Christian 
cai-eer.     And  they  would  go  on  and  grow  in  thousands  and  thousands 


12  THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  US. 

of  instances,  if  it  were  not  that  parents  have  the  absurd  notion  that 
when  Christ  is  born  i^to  persons,  he  is  a  self-registering  and  self- 
takino'-care-of  Christ,  so  that  they  say,  "If  my  child  is  born  of  God, 
God  will  take  care  of  his  own  work."  As  if  a  pomologist  should  come 
in  and  say,  "I  have  put  a  graft  into  that  tree,  and  if  nature  is  true  to 
herself,  she  will  take  care  ot  that  graft."  Nobody  says  so  about  trees. 
The  man  binds  up  the  graft  so  that  it  shall  be  held  in  its  place,  so  that 
the  water  shall  not  get  in,  and  so  that  it  shall  not  be  blown  out,  until 
it  gains  strength  sufficient  to  take  care  of  itself;  and  then  he  leaves  it 
to  the  force  of  nature. 

But  many  people,  in  bringing  up  their  children  in  the  nurture  and 
admonition  of  the  Lord,  look  with  great  suspicion  on  early  Christian 
experiences.  They  are  afraid  of  abnormal  growths.  They  are  afraid 
of  such  material  as  Sunday-school  libraries  and  biogi-aphies  are  made 
up  of.  They  regard  early  conversions  as  indicating  disease  at  the  root, 
or  in  the  body  of  the  tree.  They  do  not  believe  in  children  being  really 
Christians,  because  they  do  not  see  in  the  child  that  which  they  would 
look  for  in  a  ripe  Christian.  But  if  they  would  look  for  a  babe  Jesus 
in  a  little  babe,  they  would  find  that  there.  And  if  they  would  treat 
the  babe  Christ  as  they  would  treat  the  babe  boy,  or  the  babe  girl,  and 
nourish  it,  and  carry  it  in  their  arms,  and  rear  it,  step  by  step  ;  if  they 
would  treat  it  as  a  little  child  embosomed  and  arm-encircled ;  if  they 
would  shield  it  as  it  goes  through  all  temptation  and  all  trial,  they 
would  make  straighter  Christians,  better  branched  Chi-istians,  more 
fruitful  Christians,  than  those  that  are  made,  at  last,  out  of  old  and  bad 
growths,  by  lopping  away  the  pernicious  boughs.  There  never  will  be 
the  ripest  and  most  symmetrical  characters  in  the  Church  of  Christ  till 
we  learn  how  to  bring  them  up  from  the  seed  in  the  Spirit  of  the  blessed 
Master. 

There  are  many  persons  whose  childi'en  give  every  evidence  of 
being  truly  Christian,  but  whose  parents  shrink  from  bringing  them 
into  the  fold.     "  Ah!"  say  they,  "what  if  they  should  fall  away?" 

The  shepherd's  boy  comes  in  and  says,  "  the  ewe  has  dropped  a 
lamb  far  out  in  the  pasture  ;  shall  I  bring  it  up  to  the  barn,  and  put  it 
inside  of  the  yard?"  "No,"  says  the  shepherd,  "let  it  stay  out  to- 
nif^ht,  and  if  the  wolf  does  not  get  it,  and  the  cold  chill  does  not  kill 
it,  and  it  lives  till  to-morrow,  and  the  next  day,  it  will  be  worth  keep- 
ing, and  you  can  bring  it  in."  But  if  the  lamb  can  live  in  spite  of  the 
cold  and  wind,  and  without  the  care  of  the  shepherd,  be  does  not  need 
to  bring  it  in  then. 

There  are  many  persons  who  say  of  the  young,  "  Shall  they  be 
gathered  into  the  Church  ?  Shall  we  run  the  risk  of  their  bringing  dis- 
grace upon  the  Church  by  their  fall  ?     Which  is  the  most  important, 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  U8,  13 

in  the  name  of  God,  the  Church,  or  the  souls  of  men,  for  which  Christ 
died?  The  Chu^cli,  looked  at  as  the  servant  of  God's  dear  people, 
rises  before  my  thougnt  most  beautiful ;  but  if  the  Church  dare  to  take 
the  place  of  the  soul  of  a  man,  and  make  itself  more  precious  and 
nobler  than  the  soul,  the  poorest  and  lowest  and  least,  I  will  repudiate 
it.  The  servant  has  usurped  the  place  of  the  master,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances. For  the  Church  is  God's  slave,  sent  to  take  care  of  God's 
children,  and  if  the  Church  is  good  for  anything,  it  is  good  to  take  in 
little  children,  and  to  shelter  them ;  to  take  in  the  wayfarer,  and  to 
shelter  him  ;  to  take  in  the  spiritually  poor,  and  to  shelter  them. 

Suppose  that  they  do  break  down,  and  do  not  get  well  in  the 
Church  ?  Is  a  hospital  brought  into  disgrace  because  patients  die 
there  whom  the  doctors  have  tried  to  cure  ?  Is  a  school  brought  into 
disgrace  because  some  dullards  go  in  fools  and  come  out  idiots?  And 
shall  a  Church  be  always  trying  to  take  care  of  itself,  instead  of  taking 
care  of  that  which  God  loves  better  than  anything  else — the  souls  of 
his  dear  children  ?  Bring  your  little  children  into  the  Church.  Let 
Christ  be  born  in  them  the  hope  of  glory.  Let  there  be  a  babe  Christ 
in  their  little  experiences.  Let  them  be  formed  into  classes.  Do  not 
leave  them  out  with  the  wolf  Do  not  leave  them  until  they  are 
strong  enough  to  go  along  without  a  Church,  and  then  bring  them  in. 
See  that  they  are  taken  care  of  and  nourished. 

Those  who  have  been  brought  into  the  Church  young  within  the 
circuit  of  my  own  experience,  have,  on  the  whole,  with  single  excep- 
tions of  miscarriage,  here  and  there,  endured,  and  come  out  into  a  true 
Christian  life  with  far  better  prospects,  and  more  symmetrical  disposi- 
tions, than  those  who  have  been  brought  in  late  in  life. 

2.  One  may  be  a  Christian  who  is  yet  very  far  from  the  beauty  and 
symmetiy  and  manhood  of  piety.  We  are  not  to  suppose  that  they 
only  are  Christians  who  are  beautiful  Christians,  or  who  are  embel- 
lished with  all  Christian  graces.  A  man  may  be  a  Christian,  and  his 
Christ  may  be  a  babe.  A  man  may  be  a  Christian,  and  the  Christian 
nature  in  him  may  yet  be,  as  it  were,  in  its  boyhood.  A  man  may  be 
a  Christian,  and  yet  the  Christ  in  him  may  have  reached  only  that 
stage  in  which  it  enters  upon  young  manhood.  A  man  may  be  a 
Christian,  and  the  Christ  in  him  may  have  entered  upon  his  ministry, 
as  it  wei-e,  in  the  full  ripeness  of  his  manhood. 

We  are  not,  therefoie,  to  suppose  that  persons  are  not  Christians 
because  they  are  very  imperfect ;  because  they  break  down  in  a  thou- 
sand places;  because  they  do  with  their  religion  just  what  children  do 
with  their  worldly  knowledge  and  power. 

If  a  man's  heart  is  in  the  cause,  and  he  enlists  in  the  army,  he  is  a 
soldier,  not  when  he  is  a  veteran,  but  when  he  enlists.     He  is  a  soldier 


14  TEE  OBOWTH  OJf  CHRIST  IN  US. 

just  as  really  when  his  name  goes  down  on  the  roll,  and  he  goes  out 
with  the  awkward  squad  to  the  first  drill,  as  after  he  has  been  in  the 
army  five  years — although  he  is  not  a  soldier  with  the  same  degree  and 
amplitude  of  experience.  He  is  a  soldier  provided  his  heart  is  right, 
and  he  loves  the  cause,  and  he  joins  in  earnest.  The  degree  of  imper- 
fection and  ignorance  that  is  in  him  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  fact 
of  his  being  a  soldier. 

When  one  approaches  a  school-house,  the  word  sent  out  is  never, 
"Have  you  learned?"  The  word  of  greeting  at  the  school-house  door 
always  is,  "  Will  you  learn?"  And  he  is  a  scholar  who  can  say,  "Yes, 
I  have  come  to  learn."  For,  shall  the  encyclopaedia  go  to  school  to 
the  spelling-book  ?  Shall  a  rich,  ripe,  large,  learned  nature  go  back  to 
the  primary  elements  of  experience  ?  They  who  need  the  school,  they 
who  need  the  patience,  the  forbearance,  the  rule  and  discipline,  are 
those  who  have  but  little,  and  wish  to  increase  that  little. 

Therefore,  they  who  have  a  spark  of  grace  in  their  souls  are  Chris- 
tians; but  they  are  Christians  beginning.  They  who  have  germs 
planted  are  Christians,  only  they  are  Christians  afiir  off  in  the  spring 
and  seed-time — not  in  the  summer  and  autumn — of  the  Christian  ex- 
perience. When  a  man  has  once  looked  up  to  God  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  his  imperfection  and  sinfulness  and  transgression  in  this  mortal 
life,  and  said,  "  I  take  the  royalty  of  love  as  my  ideal,  and  that  law  is 
my  law,  and  love  shall  sit  in  the  centre,  and  bring  to  judgment  in  me 
everything  that  is  wicked,  and  cruel,  and  selfish,  and  unduly  proud, 
and  envious,  and  hateful ;  and,  plied  by  the  power  of  love,  1  will  fight 
on  the  right  and  on  the  left ;  and  I  will  subdue  myself  to  that  state 
of  love" — when  a  man  makes  that  declaration  in  sincerity,  he  has  begun 
a  Christian  life.  He  is  in  the  early  stages  of  childhood  ;  but  he  has 
begun  it.  For,  the  erecting  of  that  right  principle  in  tlie  soul,  and 
the  beginning,  by  it,  to  subdue  every  part  of  the  soul  to  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  is  the  setting  up  of  the  kingdom  of  God  in  the  soul. 

Tlie  one  characteristic,  critical  thing,  is  the  coming  into  sympathy 
with  God,  and  receiving  the  impulse  and  purpose  to  organize  the  life 
on  the  principle  of  love,  in  all  its  equalities.  If  that  element  is  found, 
the  mere  question  of  concomitant  experience  is  a  question  of  indiffer- 
ency.  Some  men  are  born  into  the  kingdom  of  God  with  very  great 
joy ;  and  the  joy  is  a  pleasant  thing  to  have  ;  it  has  its  incidental 
benefits  ;  but,  after  all,  it  is  not  the  ecstacy  of  fiuition  that  is  signifi- 
cant. It  is  that  silent  other  thing ;  viz.,  the  principle  at  the  core  of 
your  life  which  undertakes  to  organize  your  whole  being  on  the  law 
of  love.  And  that  may  be  established  in  a  man  without  any  outward 
experience.  A  person  may  come  to  a  state  in  which  he  means  to  be 
like  Chiist,  and  means  to  cut  off  everything  that  hinders  his  being  like 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  US.  15 

Christ,  and  to  enforce  outward  and  inward  compliance  to  this  law  of 
love  in  Jesus  Christ ;  and  yet,  he  may  not  have  light  nor  joy.  But  it 
is  the  raising  up  of  that  standard,  the  vindicating  of  that  sovereign  law 
in  the  soul,  which  constitutes  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  life.  If  it 
comes  with  joy,  so  much  the  better.  If  it  does  not  come  with  joy,  it 
is  none  the  less  true  conversion. 

3.  In  a  Christian  life,  as  in  the  ordinaiy  life,  there  are  two  prin- 
ciples at  work — first,  the  force  of  nature  in  the  steady  growth  and 
unfolding  of  our  normal  powers;  and  secondly,  the  voluntary  drill 
which,  working  in  harmony  with  nature,  we  call  education.  A  child, 
even  if  he  received  no  instruction,  would,  by  a  natural  process,  grow 
taller  and  broader  and  stronger.  His  bones,  by  the  law  of  nature, 
become  better  bones ;  his  muscles  become  better  muscles ;  and  the 
brain  develops  itself,  by  the  mere  operation  of  things  upon  him,  with- 
out school-house  or  instructor.  And  every  man  would  make  a  certain 
degree  of  development  and  growth  by  the  mere  unfolding  of  his  natural 
powers  in  this  world.  That,  however,  is  not  considered  as  enough. 
We  hold  that  what  may  be  called  involuntary  development  must  be 
supplemented  by  voluntary  development,  or  drill.  Every  person,  in 
order  to  grow  to  true  manhood,  besides  what  nature  is  doing  for  him, 
is  to  do  a  good  deal  for  himself  He  has  to  educate  his  eye,  his  ear, 
his  tongue,  his  hand.  He  has  to  learn  the  trade  that  shall  support 
him,  or  the  profession  which  he  will  follow.  It  is  astonishing  for  one 
to  see  what  an  amount  of  drill  and  spontaneous  intuitional  power  we 
store  up  in  ourselves,  to  attain  education,  as  we  call  it. 

It  is  precisely  the  same  in  the  Christian  life.  As  we  are  drilled  in 
learning,  in  art,  in  virtue,  in  mechanic  skill,  in  husbandry,  in  war,  in 
commerce ;  as  we  are  drilled  to  be,  as  it  were,  apprentices  in  those 
things  in  which  we  would  excel  in  natural  life,  so,  precisely,  we  need 
to  be  drilled  in  the  Christian  life.  All  men  in  Christ  Jesus  would 
have  a  certain  growth  and  development,  involuntarily,  by  the  mere 
progress  and  unfolding  of  life  and  nature  in  them ;  but  if  any  one  is 
to  have  more  than  this  spontaneous  and  natural  development,  it  must 
be  the  result  of  special  drill. 

Christian  graces,  if  I  might  so  say  without  being  misapprehended, 
are  like  so  many  trades.  They  are  not  to  be  learned  theoretically  ;  and 
certainly  they  are  not  created  in  us  by  the  mere  operation  of  the  Spirit, 
nor  by  the  forces  of  sanctified  nature.  We  learn  them  just  as  we  learn 
anything  in  outward  life.  It  is  supposed  that  the  Spirit  of  God  makes 
men  humble ;  that  it,  as  it  were,  sends  humility  into  them.  Just  as 
dew  falls,  and  orbs  itself  on  the  bearded  grass,  gemmed  and  jewelled 
on  a  summer's  moi'ning ;  so  men  think  that  the  Christian  graces  fall 
down  out  of  the  gi-eat  heavenly  concave  above  them ;  and  that  all  one 


16  THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  US. 

knows  is,  that  he  went  to  sleep  a  violet  dry,  and  woke  np  a  violet  wet 
and  beautiful !  Many  persons  think  that  meekness,  and  gentleness, 
and  humility,  and  faith,  and  patience,  and  hope,  and  joy  in  the  Holy 
Ghost,  are  divine  gifts.  They  are  divine  gifts,  to  be  sure.  So  is  corn 
a  divine  gift ;  so  is  wine  a  divine  gift ;  and  so  are  cattle  on  a  thousand 
hills  divine  gifts  ;  but  men  have  to  work  for  them.  God  gives  them 
to  man's  industry,  and  not  to  his  laziness.  All  gifts  are  divine  gifts  in 
such  a  sense  as  that.  If  the  connection  between  the  soul  and  God  were 
to  stop,  these  things  would  never  take  place  ;  but  He  works  together 
with  us  to  will  and  to  do  these  things.  No  man  ever  came  to  a  state 
of  Christian  eminence  by  waiting  and  praying  alone. 
/  For  instance,  if  you  are  going  to  learn  humility,  you  must  learn  as 
a  babe.  You  must  learn,  just  as  you  would  learn  to  be  an  artist.  An 
artist  may  have  natural  aptitudes ;  artistic  talent  may  be  an  inspira- 
tional tendency  in  some  persons ;  but  there  never  was  a  Michael  Angelo 
nor  a  Raphael  who  did  not  go  through  drill.  Though  a  man  has 
genius,  he  has  to  put  his  eye  to  school,  and  his  hands  to  school ;  and 
all  his  thoughts  have  to  go  to  school ;  and  it  is  only  by  months  and 
months  and  years  and  years  of  assidious,  discriminating  practice, 
that  he  comes  to  be  an  immortal  Raphael  or  Michael  Angelo.  And 
if  in  the  cases  of  men  of  genius  this  is  so,  how  much  more  must 
it  be  so  in  the  cases  of  ordinary  men  !     It  is  a  universal  law.  / 

iSTow,  no  man  ever  was  humble  except  he  learned  humility.  You 
have  felt  what  you  supposed  was  humility  because  you  prayed  for  it, 
and  it  came.  Why  yes,  you  had  a  flush  of  it ;  but  you  never  had 
humility  that  you  wore  as  a  garment,  that  had  not  been  wrought 
out.  You  have  come  to  it  by  the  suffering  of  the  household,  or  by 
your  voluntary  endeavor,  step  by  step,  of  Christian  experience.  You 
have  been  trained  and  drilled  into  it,  as  a  soldier  is  drilled  into  military 
movements,  and  into  prompt  and  almost  unthinking  obedience.  Humil- 
ity must  be  worked  up  from  the  lower  stages  into  the  higher  stages. 

/  Men  say,  "I  supposed  that  if  I  became  a  Christian  I  should  have 
faith ;  but  it  seems  to  me  as  though  my  faith  were  not  as  large  as  a 
grain  of  mustard-seed."  Let  me  see  your  faith.  Where  is  it  ?  He  holds 
up  what  he  calls  his  faith,  and  says,  "There  it  is  ;"  and  sure  enough,  it 
is  no  bigger  than  a  grain  of  mustard  seed.  What  have  you  done  with 
it?  "I  have  always  kept  it  in  my  pocket,  and  prayed  that  God  would 
increase  it."  Why  did  you  not  plant  it  ?  Did  you  suppose  a  gi'ain  of 
mustard-seed  would  grow  in  your  pocket  ?  Put  it  into  the  soil ;  give  it 
moisture,  give  it  rain,  give  it  sunlight,  give  it  summer ;  and  then  it 
will  begin  to  thrive.  Culture  it ;  keep  the  weeds  away ;  and  God's  sun 
will  help  it.  And  that  grain  of  mustard -seed  will  grow,  so  that  the 
bkds  will  yet  sing  in  the  branches  of  it.  , 


TEE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  US.  17 

Persons  say,  "I  lack  fiiith."  Have  you  ever  studied  for  faith? 
Have  you  ever  searched  after  faith  ?  Have  you  ever  drilled  for  faith  ? 
Have  you  ever  put  yourself  to  school  for  faith  ?  Have  you  practiced 
it?  And  in ■  practicing  it,  have  you  sought  to  see,  when  you  missed, 
why  you  missed,  and  when  you  gained,  how  you  might  augment  that 
gain  in  your  next  endeavor.  Every  Christian  grace  must  be  put  to 
school.  Or,  to  go  back  to  the  other  figure,  it  must  be  bound  out  to 
apprenticeship. 

And  so  it  is  with  joy  and  j)eace  in  believing.  Joy  comes  by  flashes. 
So  do  warm  days  in  January  come  by  flashes.  And  what  can  you  do 
except  look  out  and  enjoy  them  and  thank  God  ?  But  the  bii'ds  do 
not  come  back  for  one  day  in  January,  nor  for  two.  And  the  grass 
does  not  grow  in  January  for  one  day  or  for  two.  The  birds  do  not 
come,  and  you  do  not  have  grass,  till  one  warm  day  succeeds  another. 
One  flush  of  joy  is  just  like  one  warm  day  in  January.  It  is  better  than 
nothing ;  but  it  is  not  of  much  value  for  practical  uses.  What  you 
want  is  to  learn  how  to  create  joy  so  that  it  shall  be  like  the  con- 
tinuous sounds  of  a  marriage  bell,  or  like  the  coordinate  sounds  of 
many-voiced  instruments.  The  question  is,  how  joy  shall  spread  itself 
through  days  and  weeks  in  the  midst  of  tribulations  and  troubles,  and 
hold  on  its  way,  under  the  name  of  peace.  You  must  learn  that  But 
ah !  men  do  not  want  to  learn  it. 

,  There  was  a  crystal,  once,  in  a  rock,  which  had  conveyed  to  it  the 
knowledge  of  the  beauty  of  the  outward  world ;  and  it  prayed  silently  to 
the  god  of  minerals  that  it  would  let  it  out,  that  it  might  see  all  this  beau- 
ty. So  the  god  sent  a  minealogist,  one  day,  with  a  hammer,  who,  sus- 
pecting M^hat  was  in  the  rock,  commenced  beating  it,  and  broke  one 
part  ofi",  and  then  another,  and  another.  And  by-and-by  the  crystal 
began  to  be  seen.  And  then,  with  chisel  the  man  began  to  cut  the  rock 
right  and  left.  And  the  crystal,  being  somewhat  bruised,  and  much 
crowded,  and  greatly  terrified,  cried  out,  "  I  asked  for  deliverance,  and 
not  for  this  harsh  treatment  and  this  cruelty."  Is  there  any  other  way 
to  get  a  crystal  out  of  the  middle  of  a  rock  but  to  break  the  rock  in 
pieces  ? 

There  are  men  praying  that  God  would  give  them  joy ;  and  he 
takes  hold  of  them,  and  begins  to  break  ofi"  the  environments  and  be- 
setments  by  which  they  are  confined — false  pleasures,  false  joys,  false 
ambitions,  and  false  attachments — giving  strong  blows  on  this  side, 
bearing  heavily  on  that  side,  and  in  ten  thousand  ways  doing  violence 
to  their  natural  feelings ;  and  they  cry  out,  "  Hast  thou  become  alto- 
gether my  enemy  ?  Art  thou  against  me  ?"  If  they  would  listen  to 
the  reply  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  they  would  hear  him  say,  "Did  you  not 
want  joy  ?     And  how  can  joy  come  but  by  bringing  out  the  Christ/ 


18  THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  US. 

that  48  in  yoii  ?  And  how  can  the  Christ  that  is  in  you  be  brought  out 
if  ycu  will  not  suifer  the  things  that  are  necessary  to  bring  it  out  1" 
You  must  learn  how  to  be  joyful  under  care ;  how  to  be  joyful  under 
sliftme ;  and  how  to  be  joyful  under  contempt.  You  must  learn  how 
to  be  cast  out  and  yet  be  more  than  your  circumstances.  You  must 
learn  how  to  stand  by  the  side  of  God,  and  say,  "  Though  all  the  world 
were  against  thee,  dear  Jesus,  thou  and  I  are  mightier  than  they  ;"  and 
then  there  will  be  perfect  joy  that  will  be  like  summer  at  the  equator, 
that  knows  no  frost,  and  no  winter. 

That  which  is  true  of  joy,  is  true  also  of  truth  and  of  honesty.  Hon- 
esty is  not  a  thing  which  men  are  inspired  with.  Nobody  knows  how 
to  be  honest  except  so  far  as  he  learns.  Nobody  knows  how  to  tell 
the  truth  except  just  so  far  as  he  has  learned.  And  it  is  a  science 
which  will  bear  a  good  deal  of  studying.  Most  people  learn  to  tell  the 
tiuth  as  thousands  of  j^eople  used  to  learn  to  read  and  write  and  cipher, 
iu  their  old-fashioned  common  school  education.  When  they  had 
learned  to  read  words  of  easy  syllables,  they  thought  they  had  learned 
to  read.  An  after  use  of  reading  as  a  means  of  education  did  not  enter 
into  their  conception.  Many  persons  learn  to  speak  the  truth  in  that 
way.  Many  people  speak  the  truth  just  as  far  as  they  are  in  words  of 
two  syllables ;  and  many  people  are  honest  just  as  far  as  that.  They 
are  honest  about  as  far  as  the  spelling-book  carries  them,  and  not  much 
further.  But  truth  in  the  inward  parts — truth  in  faith,  truth  in  love, 
truth  in  thought  and  in  expression,  truth  direct  and  indirect,  in  all  the 
relations  of  life — is  a  profound  study.  It  is  a  science  of  life.  But 
very  few  have  explored  it  to  its  ultimate  points.  No  man  can  tell  the 
truth  except  in  a  very  superficial  way.  No  man  can  be  glowingly  like 
an  angel  of  truth  till  he  has  gone  to  school  to  learn  how.  And  that 
which  is  true  of  truth  in  this  respect  is  true  of  honesty. 

And  so  of  purity.  So  of  fidelity  in  little  things.  So  of  each  Chris- 
tian experience,  with  all  the  elements  of  beauty  in  it.  All  those  things 
which  are  meant  when  we  speak  of  putting  on  the  whole  armor  of  God, 
are  learned  little  by  little.  Men  cannot  gain  them  by  inspiration.  They 
cannot  gain  them  by  a  day's  or  a  year's  life.  They  must  grow  up  into 
them  in  all  things. 

Hence,  when  I  hear  men  say  that  there  are  many  departments  of 
Christian  life  in  which  they  are  fruitless,  in  which  they  have  no  gifts, 
I  say  to  myself,  "  That  is,  you  have  never  developed  your  gifts."  It  is 
true  that  men  have  different  gifts ;  but  it  is  also  true  that  many  of  us 
are  without  gifts  in  certain  directions,  because  they  are  dormant.  We 
have  never  taught  ourselves  to  exercise  those  gifts.  Every  part  of 
those  gifts  can  come  by  education.  And  though  the  Christian  life  may 
not  be  full  in  all,  it  will  be  far  more  perfect  in  all  than  it  is  in  any  now. 


TUB  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  US.  19 

4.  The  experiences  of  Christian  life  are  not  promiscuous.  They 
stand  in  a  certain  order  of  nature.  Just  as  in  a  garden  all  flowers  do 
not  blossom  in  Spring,  nor  wait  till  Autumn ;  as  there  is  a  regular  suc- 
cession, according  to  the  temperament  of  the  year,  following  a  line  of 
increasing  heat ;  as  there  is  an  order  of  development  in  the  tree  ;  as 
there  is  first  the  leaf,  and  afterwards  the  green  fruit,  and  then  the  ripe 
fruit,  so  is  it  in  Christian  life.  Christ  begins  with  us  at  the  infant 
point,  and  develops  in  us  steadily ;  and  the  later  developments  cannot 
be  had  until  the  intermediate  ones  are  passed.  We  are  steadily  to  grow ; 
but  at  each  point  of  growth  we  are,  as  it  were,  to  seize  the  experiences 
of  that  point. 

If  this  be  so,  it  will  undeceive  us  in  respect  to  many  of  those  yearn- 
ings and  aspirations  which  we  suppose  to  be  signs  and  tokens  of  grace. 
Persons  want  those  Christian  experiences  which  they  read  of  in  Paul, 
or  in  John,  without  having  had  Paul's  or  John's  history.  They  wish 
while  children  to  be  Christians  as  their  fathers  and  mothers  were,  and 
to  feel  as  they  did.  They  want  to  anticipate  the  fruit  of  a  long  life, 
and  have  it  in  the  first  year  of  that  life— which  never  can  be. 

When  you  were  a  boy  you  felt  as  I  did,  I  suppose.  You  only 
wished  that  you  were  a  man.  And  when  you  got  on  your  first  man's 
clothes,  what  an  important  day  it  was !  and  what  an  immense  man  you 
felt  yourself  to  be !  Boys,  aspuing  to  manhood,  want  to  learn  to 
smoke,  as  a  sign  that  they  are  men.  They  want  to  carry  the  various 
little  insignia — and  usually  the  vicious  ones — of  manhood.  They  long 
to  be  men  at  once,  and  are  not  content  to  be  boys,  and  to  come  to 
manhood  by  proper  unfoldings,  and  by  the  natural  growth  that  takes 
place  in  Christian  life.  Persons  are  not  willing  to  take  the  courses 
which  belong  to  the  state  of  development  to  which  they  have  attained, 
but  are  constantly  longing  for  those  things  which  lie  far  on  in  the  state 
to  which  they  are  going  by-and-by.  You  must  be  a  boy  first,  and  then 
a  youth,  and  then  a  man.  Your  experiences  will  follow  the  line  of  your 
true  development  inwardly. 

Then  comes  the  ripeness  of  Christian  life.  When,  thi'ough  years, 
or  when  through  an  experience  that  epitomizes  years,  men  have  known 
Christ,  and  the  presence  of  Christ,  and  the  power  of  Christ,  then  they 
come  into  a  ripeness  in  which  there  is,  comparatively,  peace  of  mind. 

I  am  sometimes  asked,  "Do  you  believe  any  man  becomes  per- 
fect ?"  No,  not  perfect  in  any  proper  sense  of  that  term.  You  may 
set  up  an  artificial  ideal  of  perfection ;  you  may  make  it  out  of  some 
question  of  obedience  to  law  ;  a  man  may  think  himself  to  be  perfect ; 
but  no  man,  to  my  judgment,  is  perfect  who  is  unripe.  And  a  man 
is  not  ripe  so  long  as  he  lives  in  this  world.  He  only  approximates 
toward  ripeness.     But  that  which  men  feel  after,  and  that  which  I  re- 


20  THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  US. 

epect  in  those  who  seek  perfection,  is  such  an  experience  as  grounds 
them  in  that  peace  which  passes  all  understanding,  and  holds  them 
steadfast,  and  is  full  of  joy.  I  believe  there  are  those  who  live  in  a 
state  of  perpetual  tranquility  and  rest,  with  only  occasional  oscillations. 
And  I  believe  that  it  is  the  privilege  of  Christian  men,  in  theii-  impure 
Christian  condition,  to  reach  that  state  in  which  they  shall  be  praying 
always  ;  praising  always  ;  rejoicing  always.  *'  Rejoice,"  says  the  apos- 
tle, "  in  the  Lord  ;  and  again  I  say  rejoice."  I  believe  it  is  possible  to 
attain  these  states.  You  do  not  need  to  raise  technical  questions  of 
perfection.  Only  let  the  soul  rise  so  that  it  always  lives  in  the  presence 
of  God,  and  its  Saviour,  every  hour  and  every  moment,  and  that  is 
enough.  And  it  is  attainable  by-and-by,  if  men  go  through  all  the  pre- 
liminary stages  of  experience,  and  are  not  discouraged,  but  patiently 
wait,  until  the  time  comes  in  which  they  rise  to  these  higher  experi- 
ences. 

And  now,  my  dear  Christian  brethren,  how  is  it  with  you?  At 
what  stage  are  you  of  your  Christian  life?  Go  back,  and  how  many 
years  is  it  since  you  first  named,  before  the  world,  the  name  of  Jesus? 
Are  you  further  along  in  conscious  Christian  experience  than  you 
were  on  that  day  ?  I  am  far  from  rebuking  those  who  remember  all 
their  lives  long  the  ecstacy  of  their  early  Christian  life.  There  was 
something  peculiar  in  it.  Although  later  wedded  life  is  incomparably 
richer  than  the  earlier  experiences  of  love,  no  matter  how  romantic 
they  may  be;  yet  one  should  not  willingly  part  from  the  vision, 
though  far  back,  of  his  first  romantic  love.  Of  all  the  things  which 
the  heart  knows,  tlie  least  ashamed  should  we  be  of  our  experiences  of 
loving.  Even  when  they  are  untaught,  even  when  they  ai'e  unripe 
fruit,  they  are  the  best  fruit  of  our  nature.  And  I  should  think  that 
he  had  been  badly  mated,  or  had  gone  through  a  strange  life,  who, 
standing  at  eighty  years,  should  say,  "  I  thank  God,  above  all  things, 
for  those  first  experiences  of  love  that  I  had  in  my  childhood."  No,  no, 
NO  I  The  companionship  and  the  actual  life  of  love,  carried  through  a 
score  or  two  scores  of  years,  mounts  up  in  magnitude,  and  stands  con- 
tinental in  riches,  clothed  with  an  amount  of  fruit  and  joy  which  never 
can  be  had  emotionally.  The  life  of  love  is  better  than  the  mere  emo- 
tion of  love.  And  if  it  is  so  in  the  ordinary  conditions  of  men  one 
toward  another,  how  much  more  is  it  so  in  the  conditions  of  the  soul 
toward  God. 

Our  first  experience  may  have  been  rapturous,  full  of  surprise,  full 
of  unbelief,  stimulating,  far  beyond  anything  that  we  have  had  since; 
because  the  narrower  the  experience,  the  sharper  is  the  point  of  it ; 
and  the  bulkier  the  experience,  the  less  shai-p  it  is.  As  one  needle 
will  pierce  to  the  quick,  but  twenty  needles  taken  all  together  are 


TEE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  US.  21 

blunted ;  so  oue  single  line  of  experience  will  arrest  the  attention, 
often,  when  the  whole  concurrent  experiences  of  the  soul,  being  more 
important,  would  not  seem  so  great. 

When  first  people  think  they  ai'e  delivered  from  the  power  of  sin 
and  Satan  and  death ;  when  they  first  have  a  triumphant  feeling  that 
Christ  loves  them,  and  they  know  they  love  Christ,  there  is  something 
wonderful  and  beautiful  in  it,  and  they  should  remember  it  as  long 
as  they  live  ;  but,  after  all,  is  that  the  best?  And  do  you  look  back 
and  say,  "  I  never  again  had  such  experiences  of  love ;  I  never  again 
was  so  happy  ;  I  never  again  was  so  near  to  Christ  ?"  Oh  !  what  a 
life  you  have  been  living !  Why,  how  far  have  you  been  ?  Is  your 
Christ  a  babe  yet  ?  Born  into  your  soul,  did  you  turn  the  key  of  the 
chamber  where  he  was  ?  And  did  you  send  no  schoolmaster  and  no 
nurse  there  ?  Did  you  starve  the  infant  child  ?  And  has  there  never 
been  any  growth  in  that  child  ?  Is  it  but  a  phantom  or  vision  in  you  ? 
That  child  Jesus,  born  into  your  soul,  should  have  grown,  and  should 
little  by  little  have  expelled  the  natural  man,  and  swollen  to  all  the 
proportions  of  your  being,  until  he  became  Christ  formed  truly  and 
perfectly  in  you. 

How  is  it  with  you,  dear  Christian  brethren  ?  Have  you  grown  in 
that  part  of  your  being  which  is  represented  by  Christ's  love,  and  hu- 
mility, and  disinterestedness  ?  Have  you  imitated  him  in  going  about 
doing  good  ?  Have  these  elements  cf  the  divine  nature  in  you  sever- 
ally grown  and  cohered  symmetrically,  and  swollen  to  the  proportions 
of  full  manhood  ? 

On  earth  there  is  no  sight  more  beautiful,  and  there  never  will  be 
a  sight  more  beautiful  till  He  comes  to  reign  a  thousand  years,  than  a 
character  which  has  been  steadfastly  growing  in  every  direction,  and 
has  come  to  old  age  rich  and  ripe.  I  am  sony  to  say  that  such  char- 
acters are  rare.  Yet  I  would  fain  hope  that  in  every  neighborhood, 
or  every  line  of  relationship,  there  is  some  mother,  some  aunt,  some 
saintly  maiden  sister,  whose  life  has  been  a  self-renunciation  for  the 
benefit  of  others,  and  who  rises  up  to  your  eye  bright,  tranquil,  sweet, 
unfathomable,  always  near  to  God,  and  always  near  to  man.  Are  you 
like  unto  such  ?  Have  you  walked  the  same  path?  Have  you  come 
into  sympathy  with  that  idea  of  Christian  life  and  Christian  character? 
Are  you  going  backward  ?  Are  you  standing  still  ?  Are  you  going 
forward  ?  In  which  way  are  the  motives  of  your  spirit  carrying  you  ? 
Ai'e  they  taking  you  away  from  God,  or  is  God's  spuit  overcoming 
your  natural  selfishness,  and  bringing  you  nearer  and  nearer  to  him  ? 
The  time  is  not  far  distant  when  you  must  render  an  account  of  this 
before  the  face  of  the  Crucified. 

Christian  brethren,  we  have  not  long  to  live !     It  matters  little 


22  THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  US. 

whether  we  have  a  roof  or  no  roof  over  our  heads ;  it  matters  little 
whether  our  name  is  kicked  about  as  a  football,  or  whether  it  is  hon- 
ored and  crowned.  These  things  are  of  very  little  consequence.  That 
which  we  are  to  carry  through  the  grave  with  us  is  not  riches,  nor 
fame,  nor  joy,  but  the  essential  structure  of  the  soul, — its  virtues ;  its 
moral  magnanimities ;  its  divinities.  What  have  you  to  carry  through  ? 
With  what  can  you  stand  up  in  the  sonship  of  God,  and  as  heirs  with 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ?  How  can  you  meet  your  God,  and  open  your 
soul  to  him,  and  say,  "Lord,  here  am  I;  and  here  are  all  my  powers?" 
How  can  you  stand  before  Christ  and  say,  "I  am  in  thine  image,  and 
I  am  satisfied?" 

Oh !  rise  to  that  hour  of  satisfaction.  There  is  not  in  the  range  of 
imagination  anything  conceivable  like  that.  Oh  !  ever-restless  heart  ; 
oh!  ever-mourning  sj^irit;  oh!  longing,  yearning  soul,  there  shall 
come  an  hour  to  thee  when,  if  faithful  to  the  Beloved,  thou  shalt  rise 
into  his  presence,  and  behold  the  bright  concave  full  of  God's  minis- 
tering spirits,  and  the  Lord  of  glory  on  the  throne  ;  and  thou  shalt 
stand  up  unrebuked  before  them  all ;  and,  looking  first  upon  them,  and 
then  upon  yourself,  shalt  say,  "  I  am  satisfied.  Nothing  do  I  want 
from  heaven  or  angels.  I  am  satisfied.  I  am  in  thy  likeness,  and  I 
am  satisfied."  To  that  blessed  vision  look  forward,  not  only,  but 
Christian  brethren,  prepare  for  the  Bridegroom.  And  ere  long,  before 
we  think,  the  sound  will  come,  and  we  shall  be  summoned  to  go  and 
meet  our  God. 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMOK 

"We  draw  near  to  thee,  our  Father,  not  as  those  who  have  never  beheld  ; 
for  we  have  come  often  by  this  liviDg  way  of  love.  We  have  communed 
with  thee.  We  have  received  the  tokens  of  thy  favor  and  of  thy  love. 
Thou  dost  not  love  our  sins  and  our  imperfections;  but  we  are  beloved,  and 
we  have  felt  thine  arms.  We  know  the  touch  of  thine  hand  of  benedietion 
upon  our  head.  Often  and  often  it  hath  encircled  us.  And  when  we  walk 
in  the  consciousness  of  thy  paternal  love  ;  when  our  strength  is  renewed  by 
these  divine  touches,  we  are  indeed  sons  of  God,  and  royal ;  and  there  is  no 
earthly  crown  that  can  so  crown  us  as  thine  hand  does.  And  there  are  no 
riches  that  can  make  us  so  strong  as  thy  favor,  and  thy  loving  kindness. 
And  there  is  no  such  summer,  and  no  such  delight  in  all  innocent  sport,  as 
thou  dost  grant  to  us  when  thou  surroundest  all  our  affections  with  thine 
own  paternal  spirit.  And  we  are  like  children  that  bound  in  joy  at  the  feet 
of  their  parents.  At  times  there  are  days  that  are  dark  because  they  are 
days  of  disobedience.  At  times  we  are  homesick,  because  we  are  separated 
from  thee.  At  times  we  long  for  thee,  and  have  less  of  joy  than  of  wishing 
for  joy.  But  our  life  is  with  thine.  Though  in  our  trouble  thou  dost  yet 
abide  many  days  afar  off,  and  our  dear  ones  die,  thou  comest  at  last.  Thou 
dost  never  forsake  us,  though  thou  dost  often  seem  to  leave  us.  Thou  dost 
never  deal  harshly  with  us,  though  thou  dost  deal  with  us  severely.  Thou 
art  faithful.     Thou  wilt  not  make  us  happy  by  self-love,  exaggerating  all 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHEI8T  IN  US.  23 

our  excellences,  and  hiding  all  our  faults.  Thou  dost  make  us  look  into 
the  gulf  of  our  own  experience,  and  see  what  our  passions  are.  And  when 
thou  art  regnant  in  beauty,  and  all  is  harmony  in  thy  nature  before  our 
sight,  oh  !  with  what  discord  our  own  life  moves  around  about  thine  .  Then 
■we  look  away  from  thee  to  abhor  ourselves  in  dust  and  ashes.  And  yet  thou 
dost  not  look  upon  us  with  abhorrence.  Thou  dost  not  even  look  upon  us 
with  the  same  abhorrence  with  which  we  look  upon  ourselves.  For  we  are 
thy  children,  and  are  taken  into  thine  arms  to  be  healed.  And  thy  love, 
though  it  would  take  sin  from  us  as  a  disease,  holds  the  essential  self  which 
'  we  have  in  us.  That  germ  which  is  the  center  of  our  being  is  dear  to  thee, 
and  thou  art  looking  far  forward.  Yea,  as  a  blessed  prophecy  of  love  thou 
dost  behold  often  in  us  what  we  are  to  be,  rather  than  what  we  are,  and 
roll  on  the  days  and  the  mouths  and  the  years  of  experience,  making  hasto 
to  bear  us  forward  that  we  may  be  without  spot,  or  blemish,  or  wrinkle,  and 
be  presented  before  the  throne  of  thy  Father  with  infinite  joy,  and  with 
glory  unending. 

And  now,  in  this  thy  faithfulness,  and  in  this  thy  great  love,  is  all  our 
hope.  For,  though  we  labor  and  strive,  all  our  labor  and  strife  is  as  the 
husbandman's  toil  in  summer.  If  it  were  not  for  the  summer  it  would  be 
in  vain.  And  as  the  summer  brings  forth  its  best  fruit  only  for  labor,  so 
thou  wilt  not  bring  forth  the  best  fruit  in  us  without  our  labor.  And  yet, 
that  labor  is  in  thee.  We  live  in  thee.  We  move  in  thee.  In  thee  we 
have  our  being.  It  is  thy  Spirit  that  works  in  us  to  will  and  to 
do.  And  in  this  joyful  mystery — thy  life  in  ours,  we  in  thee,  and 
thou  in  us, — we  have  traveled  now  many  years.  We  are  witnesses  for 
thy  truth.  We  are  witnesses  of  thy  fidelity.  Thou  dost  not  leave  thy 
people.  We  are  witnesses  of  thy  generosity.  Thou  dost  exceeding  abun- 
dantly more  than  we  ask  or  think.  Our  shadows  are  but  half  dark. 
Our  life  is  full  of  radiance.  And  along  the  way,  which  is  straight  and 
narrow,  and  where  we  grind  or  cut  our8elves,  still  are  overhanging  vines; 
and  we  pluck  the  clusters,  and  renew  our  strength,  and  go  on  again.  Our 
life  is  ever  watched.  Angels  are  about  us  by  day  and  by  night, airy  mes- 
sengers sent  by  God,  full  of  love  and  ftiithfulness,  and  executing  his  will  to 
those  who  shall  be  saved.  We  rejoice,  O  Lord  !  that  thoa  hast  been  with 
us  in  all  the  emergencies  of  life;  in  times  of  peril;  in  times  of  vehement 
temptation ;  in  times  when  all  nature  sets  itself  up  against  all  that  there  is 
in  us  of  grace.  Thou  hast,  O  Lord!  divided  for  us  the  Red  Sea  and  the 
Jordan,  and  we  have  gone  over.  For  us,  and  in  us,  thou  hast  fought,  and 
we  have  subdued  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  though  we  have  not  put  them 
utterly  away.  In  thee  we  have  been  radiant  and  victorious,  and  gained 
many  things,  with  the  prospect  of  many  more,  and  the  hope  and  confidence 
of  them.  And  we  rejoice  in  all  thy  wondrous  love  and  kindness  that  hath 
thus  far  befriended  us.  But  oh  !  what  is  it  to  that  which  is  to  come  ?  What 
is  the  substance,  and  what  is  the  joy  of  the  experience  of  thy  sway  here, 
compared  with  the  vision  of  it  which  is  kindled  by  thy  word  and  by  thy 
Spirit  in  our  hearts  ?  We  rejoice  in  the  coming  perfection.  We  lift  up 
feeble  hands  pointing  toward  strength.  We  look  away,  and  see  ourselves 
as  we  are  to  be  when  we  are  like  thee.  We  behold  ourselves  in  the  vision 
of  faith,  triumphing  over  our  infirmities,  elate  in  eternal  youth,  mortal  in 
purity  and  love,  and  the  powers  thereof.  And  we  rejoice,  O  Lord  !  that 
thus  we  may  beforehand  have  something  of  our  truest  manhood,  and  may 
sit  down  beforehand  at  the  banquet  of  thy  coming  love. 

So,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  we  may  use  our  heavenly  vision,  not  to  make 
us  weary  of  the  world,  but  more  faithful  in  it;  not  to  tell  us  of  that  food 
which  we  have  here,  but  to  give  us  the  moral  grace  to  partake  of  it  with 
contentment,  knowing  that  ere  long  we  shall  be  no  more  travelers  at  an  inn, 
but  children  at  home  in  our  Father's  house. 

And  grant,  O  Lord!  that  the  reality  of  this  may  comfort  us  in  losses; 
may  console  us  in  griefs ;  may  encourage  us  in  despondency ;  may  rebuke 


24  TEE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST  IN  US. 

us  when  we  are  faint  hearted,  and  would  turn  away  from  our  life.  May  we 
be  able  to  bear  burdens  as  good  soldiers.  Oh !  help  us  more  and  more  to  sink 
self  in  the  glory  and  honor  of  God  in  ourselves.  May  we  become  heroic  for 
Christ's  sake,  bearing  about  that  precious  Name.  May  we  not  count  it 
hard  if  we  are  cast  out  for  Christ's  sake.  And  if  we  are  cast  out  for  bearing 
testimony  to  thy  name,  may  we  remember  what  thou  didst  to  him  of  old 
who  was  cast  out  of  the  Synagogue  because  he  bore  witness  to  thy  kind- 
ness and  faithfulness.  Go  unto  men  and  speak  peaceably  and  comfortably 
unto  them,  and  encourage  them  to  believe  that,  standing  with  Christ  out- 
side of  the  Synagogue,  more  are  they  that  are  for  them  than  are  they  that  are 
against  them. 

And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  strengthen  thy  witnesses  every- 
where— those  that  silently  bear  witness  amidst  the  cares  and  desponding 
duties  of  the  household.  Over-wearied  with  much  watching  ;  tried  and 
troubled  with  vehement  temptations ;  drawn  every  whither,  still  may  they 
be  able  to  triumph  and  become  sons  shrined  in  the  household. 

Help  all  those  that  are  combating  the  world,  and  seeking  to  carve  out 
their  duties  there.  May  they  be  able  to  wrestle  with  the  mighty  tempta- 
tions that  are  brought  to  bear  upon  them,  and  overcome  them  all.  And  not 
only  may  they  overcome  temptations,  but  may  they  carry  forward  the  work 
of  holiness.  And  may  justice  shine  in  their  hands.  And  may  truth,  like  a 
star,  fall  upon  the  path  that  men  should  walk  in.  And  so  we  beseech  of 
thee  that  our  young  men  may  be  strong  and  valiant  for  Christ  everywhere. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  those  who  are  sick  ;  all  those 
who  are  withheld  from  the  house  of  worship.  May  that  Spirit  which 
makes  this  place  light  and  joyful  be  borne  unto  them.  Give  them  a  por- 
tion in  due  season.  And  may  those  walk,  leaning  on  thine  arm,  whose  feet 
go  down  to  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death.  And  all  the  way  through 
may  thy  rod  and  thy  staff  comfort  them.  Bear  them  beyond  the  flood, 
beyond  the  touch  of  death,  and  into  the  glories  of  immortality. 

Be  near  to  all  those,  to-day,  who  would  render  thanks  in  thine  house  for 
great  mercies  shown  them.  Accept  the  thanks  of  those  who  have  come  once 
again  to  the  house  of  God  for  the  first  time  in  a  long  while.  Remember 
children  and  companions,  dearer  than  life,  spared  by  thee.  May  they  not 
forget  their  secret  thoughts  and  the  vows  of  their  hearts  when  they  plead 
with  God  for  mercies.  And  now  that  thy  mercies  have  come  and  crowned 
them  with  victory,  may  they  not  forget  their  covenants. 

And  accept  the  desires  of  those  who  are  as  strangers  in  a  strange  land  in 
our  midst  to-day.  If  there  are  any  that  are  homesick,  O  Lord  Jesus!  com- 
fort them.  If  there  are  those  whose  hearts  ache,  and  turn  back,  and  find 
their  beloved  ones  scattered  everywhither,  yet  by  faith  may  they  be  able 
to  meet  them  all  again  in  the  house  of  prayer,  in  their  Father's  house. 

Be  with  all  those,  we  beseech  thee,  who  labor  in  our  Sabbath-schools 
and  Bible-classes,  and  who  go  forth  among  the  neglected  and  the  poor,  to 
carry  the  Gospel  of  humanity  and  of  salvation  through  Jesus  Christ  to  them._ 
And  we  pray  that  they  may  never  weary  in  well-doing,  in  season  and  out  of 
season.     They  shall  reap  if  they  faint  not. 

And  we  pray  that  thy  work  may  go  on  in  thy  Churches.  More  and 
more  may  thy  truth  be  a  living  truth.  More  and  more  may  it  have  power 
on  the  lives  and  hearts  and  dispositions  of  the  people.  May  it  be  difiused 
in  the  experiences  of  thy  Churches.  Let  thy  kingdom  come,  everywhere. 
May  woes,  and  the  occasion  of  them,  cease.  And  may  despotisms  pass 
away.  May  superstition  be  utterly  overthrown.  May  the  sweet  truth  of 
God's  love  in  Clirist  Jesus  carry  emancipation  everywhere.  May  humanity, 
and  peace,  and  order,  and  thy  kingdom,  descend  and  dwell  upon  the  earth, 
and  Christ  come  and  reign  a  thousand  years. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise,  Father,  Son  and  Spirit.    Amen. 


II. 
SiN's  Recompense. 


SIN'S  RECOMPENSE. 


"  And  thou  mourn  at  the  last,  when  thy  flesh  and  thy  body  is  consumed, 
and  say,  How  have  I  hated  instruction  and  my  heart  despised  reproof;  and 
have  not  obeyed  the  voice  of  my  teachers,  nor  inclined  mine  ear  to  them 
that  instructed  me." — Pro  v.  v.,  11-13. 


If  all  men  believed  at  the  beginning  of  their  courses  of  life  what 
they  find  at  the  end,  there  would  be  far  less  power  in  temptation,  and 
many  would  turn  aside  from  those  paths  which  bring  them  to  ruin  ; 
but  it  is  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  youth,  that  whUe  it  has  unbounded 
faith  in  certain  dhections,  it  seldom  has  fliith  in  regard  to  mischiefs 
which  beflill  disobedience.  In  common  with  a  large  part  of  the  adult 
community,  the  young  are  not  sure  that  there  is  a  moral  government. 
Men  say, 

"  How  doth  God  know  ?  and  doth  the  Most  High  see  and  consider  ? 
Where  is  your  God  ?" 

There  are  many  reasons  which  conspire  to  make  men  either  over- 
confident in  the  beginnings  of  life,  or  even  audacious. 

There  are,  in  the  first  place,  the  inexperience  and  thoughtlessness 
which  belong  to  the  young.  They  are  ignorant.  They  have  had  no 
instruction  at  home,  or  only  such  as  they  might  as  well  have  missed. 
Thousands  there  are  who  have  had  no  pains  taken  in  the  formation  of 
their  consciences.  Conscience,  even  if  it  be  strong  by  nature  in  them, 
has  had  no  advantage  of  education.  The  intellect  is  as  indispensable 
to  a  wise  conscience  as  the  conscience  is  to  an  mtelligent  understand- 
ing. And  it  is  not  surprising  that  children,  adventuring  with  all  the 
flush  of  life  into  unknown  ways,  do  not  give  heed  to  advice  or  caution ; 
especially  considering  how  often  caution  and  advice  are  given  by 
men  who  are  not  altogether  the  most  acceptable  moralists — dried,  with- 
ered up,  pragmatical,  fussy  men — men  that  have  outlived  their  appe- 
tites, and  seem  to  wish  to  restrain  the  young  from  the  enjoyment  of 
the  sap  and  blossom  of  life — long-faced  men — men  whose  ideas  are 
ascetic.  The  young  frequently  reject  good  advice  because  it  comes 
from  an  unwelcome  source.  And  sometimes  moral  caution  is  urged 
in  ways  which  are  repulsive.      Of  course,  if  it  is  true,  if  the  word 

RfNDAY  EvENi^o,  October  17,  1869.      LESSON:   l8A.  LXXIII.     3-26.    Hymns  (Plymouth 
Collection)  Nos.  ti43,  732,  500. 


26  SIIf'8  RECOMPENSE. 

is  in  consonance  with  human  experience  and  the  laws  of  God,  it 
is  better  to  accept  it  under  the  most  offensive  administration,  than  to 
go  without  it.  And  yet,  there  is  a  strong  opposition  m  the  young 
heart.  There  is  a  disposition  to  rebound.  At  a  certain  period  of  life 
sin  becomes  sweet,  they  think.  Men  do  things  sometimes  because  they 
ai'e  told  not  to  do  them.  And  the  young,  breaking  away  at  that 
point  of  time  in  which  they  do  not  know  whether  they  are  under 
government  or  whether  they  are  governing  themselves — at  that  point 
when  they  wish  to  assert  their  liberty,  and  put  it  to  proof — often  do 
things  which  in  later  periods  they  scarcely  would  be  tempted  to  do. 

Besides  all  this,  there  is  a  hopefulness,  a  most  defiant  and  audacious 
spirit  m  the  young.  They  do  not  believe  it  is  necessary  that,  certain 
courses  being  followed,  they  should  reap  mischiet  from  them.  They 
say,  "  I  suppose  others  have  gone  on  in  such  and  such  courses,  and 
have  come  to  harm ;  but  then,  they  were  stupid.  It  may  be  true  that 
thousands  have  perished  in  this  way ;  but  then,  they  had  not  skill ; 
they  did  not  understand  themselves." 

The  young  man  is  cautioned  in  respect  to  the  use  of  intoxicating 
agents,  and  the  hecatombs  that  have  been  slaughtered  are  brought  before 
his  mind  ;  but  they  are  as  nothing  to  him,  and  he  says,  "  Yes,  very  likely 
it  may  be  so ;  but  I  am  not  one  that  is  apt  to  oe  overthrown  in  such  i 
way  as  that.  A  man  is  a  fool  who  cannot  command  himself.  I  can 
go  as  far  as  I  please,  and  come  back  when  I  jolease.  And  because 
others  are  silly  and  weak,  is  no  reason  why  I  should  not  enjoy  my 
natural  strength  and  ray  liberty." 

There  is  a  hopefulness  which  goes  beyond  all  bounds,  frequently. 
For  although,  in  right  ways,  a  man  should  be  hopeful,  there  may  be 
an  excess  of  hopefulness,  even  in  right  ways.  When  it  is  venture- 
some ;  when  it  is  a  hopefulness  that  at  last  threads  along  the  path 
of  evil,  or  near  it,  then  it  is  positively  bad.  Hopefulness  under  such 
circumstances  becomes  infatuation.  And  yet,  there  are  thousands  who 
think  they  can  pursue  courses  that  in  others  are  wrong,  and  eventuate 
in  mischief,  and  not  reach  the  mischief  Or,  oftener,  men  think  it  pos- 
sible for  them  to  pursue  a  certain  course  as  long  as  it  tastes  good,  and 
then  turn  round  and  rinse  out  the  mouth  with  virtue,  and  be  as  well 
off  as  though  they  had  not  gone  into  such  a  career.  Men  think  they 
can  first  give  themselves  to  the  world,  and  that  after  they  have  squeezed 
the  world  as  they  would  an  orange,  they  can  turn  round,  at  the  proper 
age — at  thirty,  or  thirty-five,  or  forty,  or  forty-five — and  become 
Christians.  They  say,  "  When  I  have  reaped  all  that  there  is  in  vice 
while  I  am  young,  I  will  turn  round,  and  reap  all  that  there  is  in  vir- 
tue and  piety ,  and  so  gain  two  worlds — all  there  is  of  this,  and  all  there 
is  of  that." 


Sm'S  RECOMPENSE.  27 

Now,  there  is  no  single  pleasure  that  a  manly  man  onglit  to  love 
the  flavor  of  which  is  not  permissible  to  a  Christian.  There  is  not  a 
thing  that  a  Christian  may  not  have  which  every  young  man  ought 
not  to  be  ashamed  to  take.  Piety  does  not  shut  up  the  avenues  of  en- 
joyment. True  virtue  makes  every  enjoying  faculty  more  sensitive  to 
joy.  I  repudiate  and  repel  with  scorn  the  imputation  that  when  a 
man  is  a  child  of  God,  and  is  at  peace  wnth  all  God's  laws  in  material 
things,  social  things,  and  moral  things,  he  is  shut  up.  He  is  enfran- 
chised, rather.  He  is  enlarged.  He  is  ennobled.  There  is  more  music 
in  him,  in  every  single  chord  and  faculty,  than  there  can  be  in  any 
other.  There  is  no  man  so  free,  there  is  no  man  who  has  a  range  so 
boundless,  as  the  man  who  is  at  peace  with  God.  And  yet,  there  are 
multitudes  of  persons  who  suppose  that  there  are  peculiar  pleasures 
which  cannot  be  reaped  except  by  a  reprobate  course.  There  never  was 
any  mistake  greater  than  that. 

Then  there  are  the  reactions  from  an  infelicitous  way  of  teaching 
which  tend  to  produce  presumption  in  the  young — either  a  disbelief  in 
the  reality  and  jjunishing  nature  of  sin,  or  else  a  belief  that  they  can 
avoid  it,  even  if  it  do  threaten.  I  mean  the  exaggerated  and  indis- 
criminating  way  in  which  sin  is  often  held  forth.  Much  of  the  instruc- 
tion which  is  given  on  this  subject  is  not  wise.  Conventional  sins,  too 
frequently,  are  almost  the  only  ones  that  are  held  up.  Ciiiklren  are 
scarcely  rebuked  if  they  are  fundamentally  proud,  if  they  are  envious 
and  selfish  and  jealous ;  but  if  a  child  breaks  any  little  family  rule,  he 
is  whipped,  or  is  roundly  scolded.  In  other  words,  sins  that  violate 
conventional  rules  are  punished.  There  are  such  things  as  family  sins, 
that  do  not  go  outside  of  the  family.  There  are  sins  of  omission.  For 
instance,  the  boy  is  required  to  hang  his  hat  on  a  peg,  and  if  he  fails 
to  do  it,  it  is  a  sin ;  or,  the  boy  is  forbidden  to  make  a  noise  in  the  house, 
and  he  tramps  down  stairs  or  through  the  ball,  and  that  is  a  sin. 

There  are  also  church  sins.  Standing  in  the  house  of  God  with  the 
hat  on,  and  so  desecrating  the  building,  is  a  church  sin.  There  is  a 
great  variety  of  church  sins,  such  as  not  reading  the  Bible,  and  the  non- 
observance  of  Sundays  and  other  holy  days. 

Now,  I  do  not  undertake  to  say  that  family  rules  are  not  impor- 
tant, or  that  school  rules  are  not  important,  or  that  church  rules  are 
not  important ;  but  I  say  that  every  child  ought  to  be  instructed  in 
the  difference  between  those  rules  which  are  made  by  men  for  their 
own  convenience,  and  those  principles  on  which  God's  everlasting  judg- 
ment stands,  around  about  which  human  character  is  built  up,  which 
enters  into  the  very  structure  of  society,  and  can  not  be  violated  with- 
out setting  the  peace  of  society  at  naught,  and  prejudicing  the  welflxre 
of  the  individual.     And  y«t,  how  many  persons  are  from  day  to  day 


28  Slips  BECOMPENSE. 

allowed  to  indulge  in  envy,  and  avarice,  and  ill-temper,  and  all  manner 
of  wicked  feelings,  that  strike  at  the  very  root  of  love,  which  is  the 
law  of  God,  and  the  law  of  the  universe,  without  being  rebuked,  and 
made  to  feel  that  they  are  delinquent  in  the  matter  of  rectitude  !  And 
how  often  is  it  the  case  that  persons,  if  they  violate  a  saint's  day,  or  do 
not  readjust  so  much,  or  are  not  in  their  places  at  prayers,  or  do  not  do 
this  or  that  conventional  thing,  are  charged  with  violation  of  duty,  or 
with  committing  sin  !  And  so,  their  idea  of  sins  is,  that  they  are  pecca- 
dillos. They  have  a  superstitious  notion  of  what  is  sinful.  As  the  young 
grow  up  without  knowing  what  wrong  is,  or  how  to  rectify  the  mis- 
chief, they  too  often  break  through  all  bounds  of  moderation,  and  say, 
"  I  do  not  believe  in  sinfulness  ;  I  do  not  believe  in  any  danger  such 
as  we  are  warned  of.  This  kind  of  teaching  will  do  very  well  for  the 
nursery,  it  will  answer  for  children,  and  may  scare  them ;  but  I  am  too 
much  of  a  man  to  be  frightened  any  longer  at  the  idea  of  sin." 

Conventional  sins  are  held  up  before  men  as  representing  sinning, 
until  there  comes  up  a  scepticism  of  the  whole  doctrine  and  the  whole 
sad  and  melancholy  experience  of  sinning. 

I  hold  that  while  for  our  convenience  it  is  necessary  that  we  should 
have  artificial  rules,  there  are  great  principles  of  character  and  conduct 
which  were  created  with  the  -creation  of  the  world  itself,  the  vio- 
lation of  which  infixes  penalties  in  every  heart  and  in  every  life,  and 
from  which  no  man  ever  escapes.  There  are  self-registering  sins. 
There  are  sins  which  carry  in  their  own  nature  an  outcome  of  mischief 
that  lowers  the  tone  of  life,  and  lowers  the  susceptibility  of  happiness, 
multiplying  the  causes  of  vexation,  and  care,  and  trial,  and  trouble, 
followino-  the  mind  with  misrule,  and  preparing  it  for  the  stumblings 
and  the  downfalls  that  come  later  in  life,  as  the  inevitable  result  of 
sins  that  are  not  forgiven.  Such  sins  do  not  wait  for  men  to  find  out 
and  punish  them.  God  has  bound  his  universe  together  in  such  a  way, 
and  given  to  his  laws  such  vitality  and  self-defending  pow-er,  that  any 
man  who  sins  against  his  conscience,  against  his  own  inward  nature, 
or  against  the  essential  welfare  of  .society,  gets  it  back  double  and 
quadruple,  in  his  own  soul ;  and  that,  whether  men  find  it  out  or  not, 
or  whether  or  not  he  recognizes  the  source  of  those  troubles  and  sxifier- 
ings  which  afterwards  come  upon  him.  The  absolute  universality  of 
moral  law,  and  the  inevitableness  of  moral  penalty,  is  one  of  the  most 
wholesome,  though  one  of  the  most  neglected,  of  all  doctrines. 

Again,  men  are  made  presumptuous  in  sinning  because  they  see 
wicked  men  prospering.  They  regard  that  as  the  refutation  ot  half 
the  preaching,  and  of  almost  all  the  advice  they  hear.  This  is  a  fatal 
delusion  which  has  destroyed  thousands,  and  will  snare  and  lead  to 
destruction  other  thousands  yet.     Men  do  not  believe  that  illicit  courses 


Sm'S  RECOMPENSE.  29 

fxxQ  dangerous,  because  they  see  that  others  who  have  pursued  them 
are  prospered.  Men  do  not  believe  that  the  indulgence  of  appetites  is 
destructive  of  all  true  happiness  in  the  end,  because  they  have  seen 
men  Avho  seemed  really  to  enjoy  themselves,  though  they  had  done 
these  very  things.  They  do  not  believe  that  untruth,  if  it  is  skillfully 
used,  is  a  dangerous  thing.  They  do.  not  believe  that  dishonesty  is 
dangerous,  if  it  is  only  not  vulgar,  or  if  there  is  art  and  skill  in  it. 
They  do  not  doubt  that  men  can  thrive  on  dishonesty.  They  do  not 
believe  there  is  any  necessity  that  a  man  should  obey  the  great  law  of 
equivalents — that  law  which  requires  that  a  man  should  render  some 
fair  equivalent  for  everything  which  he  gains,  as  the  condition  of  enjoy- 
ing and  holding  it.  They  do  not  believe  in  any  such  thing.  They 
point  on  every  side  to  examples,  saying,  "Is  there  any  man  who  is 
less  a  Christian  than  these  ?  And  yet,  look  at  their  estate.  See  how 
men  do  them  reverence.  They  have  more  than  heart  could  wish. 
Then-  eyes  stand  out  with  fatness."  Men  see  their  fellows  pursuing 
bad  courses  in  life  apparently  unchecked ;  and  they  say,  "  Sin  is  not 
punished;  and  what  you  call  evil  courses  are  not  dangerous." 

In  regard  to  this,  I  have  to  say,  first,  that  this  is  but  a  superficial 
view  of  the  prosperity  of  these  men  who  are  thriving  by  wicked 
ways.  I  do  not  believe,  for  one,  that  that  man  is  prosjDcrous  who 
is  not  happy.  Suppose  a  man  were  to  have  the  gout,  and  the  neu- 
ralgia, and  the  rheumatism,  besides  some  fever  and  dropsy,  and  sev- 
eral other  diseases,  do  you  believe  it  would  be  possible  to  put  him 
in  cu'cumstances  where  ho  would  be  a  prosperous  man?  Suppose 
you  gave  him  a  thousand  ships ;  suppose  you  gave  him  a  thousand 
acres  of  land ;  suppose  you  gave  him  harvests  that  could  not  be 
weighed  nor  counted ;  suppose  you  piled  up  his  wealth,  could  there 
be  anything  that  would  be  an  equivalent  for  his  condition,  as  he  lay 
curled  up,  shrunk  and  shriveled  on  one  side,  and  expanded  and  swelled 
out  on  the  other,  vibrating  through  fiery  suffering  and  pain  ?  I  say 
nay.  You  would  say  nay.  But  you  often  see  men  who  attempt  to 
gain  wealth  at  the  poles,  or  under  the  equator,  when  everybody  knows 
that  they  will  purchase  it  at  the  expense  of  a  broken  constitution,  and 
come  home  unfitted  to  enjoy  it ;  but  they  do  not  believe  it  will  be  so. 
If  you  could  bring  men  where  they  would  see  all  this  waste  and  all 
these  penalties  in  theu-  bodies  on  the  one  side,  and  wealth  on  the  other 
side,  and  you  should  ask  them,  "  Will  you  be  rich  ?"  I  think  the  great 
majority  would  hesitate  about  choosing  riches.  They  want  wealth, 
but  they  would  not  take  it  at  that  price. 

Now,  what  that  is  to  the  body,  I  firmly  believe  wicked  courses  are 
to  the  soul.  I  do  not  believe  that  a  man  ever  prospers  in  this  world 
who  violates  the  law  of  temperance,  or  the  law  of  God  in  the  great 


30  Sm'S  RECOMPENSE. 

matter  of  purity.  I  do  not  believe  tliat  man  -who  is  careless  of  his 
word,  and  careless  of  his  deeds,  and  who  violates  the  law  of  equity  and 
justice,  is  ever  a  happy  man.  I  do  not  believe  that  man  who  thinks 
more  of  property  and  power  and  ambition  than  he  does  of  rectitude 
and  purity  and  refinement,  is  ever  paid  for  his  sacrifice  of  moral  prin- 
ciple. If  you  could  look  into  the  minds  of  those  men  who  pursue 
wrong  courses,  and  see  how  little  enjoyment  there  really  is  there,  in 
spite  of  this  outward  show,  and  glitter,  and  ostentation,  and  power  and 
royalty,  you  would  see  that  although  there  is  an  outward  prosperity,  it 
is  a  prosperity  Avhich  has  in  it  infinite  sadness. 

There  is  no  course  that  it  is  worth  a  man's  while  to  pursue  which 
does  not  make  him  happy.  The  reason  men  pursue  courses  that  are 
wrong,  is,  that  they  believe  they  will  be  made  happier ;  that  they  will 
reap  greater  pleasm-e.  And  if  you  could  show  that  these  wrong  courses 
in  men  make  them,  not  happy,  but  wretched,  their  example  would  be 
disarmed  of  half  of  its  mischief. 

I  verily  believe  that  men  who  prosper  by  wickedness  lose  their 
capacity  of  enjoyment ;  so  that  there  are  thousands  and  thousands  of 
ovcrswollen  prosperous  men  who  are  not  one-tenth  as  happy  as  the 
men  who  have  almost  nothing.  Why,  there  are  poor  working  men 
in  yonder  city  with  such  ]iitiful  stipends  that  they  can  scarcely  make 
the  ends  meet,  who  are  yet  a  great  deal  happier  than  the  millionaire 
whom  they  serve.  There  are  men  that  have  gone  through  the  pros- 
perity of  what  is  called  secular  things  in  this  world,  who  look  out  en- 
viously, and  sometimes  almost  sadly,  upon  the  swart  laborer,  and  say, 
"  Oh  !  if  I  bad  no  more  anxiety  than  he  has ;  if  I  could  whistle  and 
sing  as  he  does  ;  if  I  had  his  lungs,  and  such  arms  as  he  has  ;  if  I  were 
as  happy  as  he  is,  I  think  I  would  be  willing  to  give  up  all  my  wealth." 
Oh !  the  heart-aching  cares,  the  rust  and  biting,  the  envies  and  jeal- 
ousies, the  competitions  and  rivalries,  the  attritions,  of  a  life  keyed  in 
the  lower  range  of  the  human  faculties !  These  miseries  belong  to  such 
men  ;  and  if  you  could  look  into  them  you  would  not  be  deceived,  nor 
seduced,  nor  persuaded  to  take  their  place. 

But  that  is  not  all.  We  are  not  accustomed  to  follow  men's  lives 
clear  through.  We  glance  at  them,  and  see  what  we  can  by  simply 
looking  upon  their  outward  estate ;  but  we  do  not  wait  to  see  their 
end.  The  Psalmist  said  that  he  was  a  fool  because  he  did  not  wait 
long  enough  to  see  the  end  of  wicked  men,  and  know  what  became 
of  them.  Thousands  are  dazzled  by  the  glitter  of  v.-itty,  dashing, 
refined  young  men  who  are  entering  life.  These  }'Oung  men  know 
life  in  all  its  parts.  They  know  everybody  and  everything  in  it. 
They  are  bi-illiant  young  men.  The  callow  and  inexperienced  youth 
is  ashamed  of  himself  because  he  is  not  expert  in  the  things  which 


SIN'S  MEOOMPENSE.  31 

these  young  men  are  versed  in.     He  is  ashamed  because  he  never 
did   do   any  dirty  things.      He   is   ashamed   because  he   never  was 
willmg  to  drinlc.     He  is  ashamed  because  his  vocabulary  of  oaths  is 
such  a  poor  one.     He  is  ashamed  that  he  does  not  swear.     He  really 
feels  bad  about  it.     He  seems  to  think  that  he  is  a  poor  white-livered 
creature  because  he  is  not  like  these  dashing  blades  who  command  the 
admiration  of  silly  women  and  foolish  men.     But  these  very  younc 
men  by  whom  he  is  thus  dazzled  shall  not  live  out  half  their  days. 
They  are  brilliant;  but  it  is  doubtful  wliether  many  of  them  will  see 
fifty  years.     More  than  two-thirds  of  them  will  begin  to  grow  old 
prematurely.      Not  a  few  of  them  will  be  wrinkled,  broken  down, 
bankrupt  in  reputation,  ruined,  almost  before  they  reach  man's  estate. 
Some  of  them  will  die  just  when  they  ought  to  be  entering  upon 
active  lives  of  usefulness.     And  many  of  those  that  live  might  as  well 
be  dead,  they  will  be  such  wretched,  miserable  creatures — mere  frao-- 
ments  of  men,  groping,  crawling  through  life.     Oh  !  how  many  men 
I  have  seen  that  were  formal  enough,  that  were  proper  enough,  that 
were  very  slow  and  cautious,  who,   if  they  saw  the  young  runnino- 
after  enjoyment,  sat,  and  with  a  ghastly  smile,  said,  "  I  used  to  be 
one  of  those  young  men.     I  had  a  time  of  it  when  I  was  younf."     I 
should  think  so,  judging  from  what  is  left  of  you   now  that  you  are 
old  I     I  can  point  you  to  men  out  of  whom  all  the  sap  is  gone,  whose 
marrow  was  early  consumed,  because  they  kept  five  hundred  wicks 
burning  at  once,  and  used  themselves  up  in  their  youih.     And  now 
that  they  have   come  to  old  age,  what  is   the   matter  with   them? 
Why  is  it  that  they  hem  and  cough  ?     They  were  once  well,  but  now 
they  are  in  "  ill  health,"  as  they  say.     Where  did  that  ill  health  come 
from  ?     They  were  once  very  wealthy.      They  will  tell  you  that  they 
were  not  always  as  poor  as  they  are  now.     What  has  become  of  their 
property  ?    They  squandered  it.    How  came  they  to  squander  it  ?    Poor, 
miserable,  starving  creatures  they  are,  destroyed  in   body  and  mind 
and  reputation  ;  and  they  talk  as  though  they  came  to  their  present 
state  of  uselessness  and  contempt  by  misfortune.     It  was  the  misfor- 
tune of  squandering  their  youth,  instead  of  filling  it  up.     If  a  man 
sin  against  his  own  soul  and  body,  and  against  God,  and  against  the 
laws  of  morality  in  society,  it  is  a  misfortune,  to  be  sure,  but  it  is  a 
misfortune  for  which  he    alone  is   responsible.      It  is  a  misfortune ; 
but  it  is  the  misfortune  of  his  not  using  common  sense  and  moral 
sense. 

Go  see  the  other  end.  Stand  with  me  and  look  into  the  brilliant 
saloon.  Ye  that  have  seen  what  young  men  do  up  at  Delmonico's,  go 
and  see  what  they  do  down  at  Flall)ush.  Ye  who  have  seen  the  wine 
when  it  gave  its  color  in  the  cup,  and  who  revel  through  the  late  hours 


32  SIN'S  RECOMPENSE. 

again  and  again,  from  winter  to  winter,  until  you  ai'e  worn  out,  why 
do  not  you  visit  your  old  relations  in  Greenwood?  There  they  are. 
Go  see  where  these  things  end.  Did  you  ever  keep  an  account;  or  do 
you  just  look  and  see, what  you  do  see  for  the  moment,  and,  without 
reason  or  statistics,  go  headlong  to  destruction  ? 

There  is  a  law  of  everlasting  rectitude.  There  are  conditions  on 
which  men's  bodies  will  serve  them  happily,  and  there  are  conditions 
on  which  men's  souls  will  serve  them  happily.  But  if  a  man  violate 
these  conditions,  no  matter  how  secretly,  no  matter  how  little,  just  as 
sure  as  there  is  a  God  in  heaven  he  must  suffer  the  penalty.  Every 
one  of  the  wrongs  which  a  man  commits  against  his  own  soul  will  find 
him  out,  and  administer  its  own  penalty. 

But  there  comes  a  time  when  men  who  are  not  actually  worn  out 
by  excess  of  transgression  do  regain,  to  some  extent,  their  moral 
sense.  After  this  period  of  infatuation  there  comes,  very  frequently,  a 
period  of  retrospection.  It  is  that  which  is  alluded  to  in  the  text  which 
I  have  selected : 

"  And  thou  mourn  at  the  last,  when  thy  flesh  and  thy  body  are  con- 
sumed, and  say,  How  have  1  hated  instruction,  and  my  heart  despised 
reproof,  and  have  not  obeyed  the  voice  of  my  teachers,  nor  inclined  mine 
ear  to  them  that  instructed  me  1  I  was  almost  in  all  evil,  in  the  midst  of 
the  congregation," 

How  many  there  are  who  have  come  to  that!  Whatever  may 
be  the  impunity  with  which  men  sin  at  the  first,  and  whatever  may  be 
the  godlessness  of  their  conscience,  there  comes  a  time  when  they  are, 
to  a  greater  or  less  degree ,  sensible  of  the  reality  of  then-  transgres- 
sions, and  of  the  penalty  which  God  fixes  upon  the  transgressor.  Some- 
times, when  the  consequences  of  wrong  begin  to  unfold,  men  come  to 
their  moral  sense.  There  are  those  who  never,  after  once  or  twice, 
have  a  pang  because  they  ai'e  living  a  life  of  infidelity  to  their 
employers.  They  are  deliberately  defrauding.  They  are  stealing, 
and  lying  to  cover  it.  It  cost  them  a  little  suffering  at  first.  The 
beginnings  of  wrong  courses  are  painful.  But  it  is  said  that  the 
sensibility  in  having  a  limb  taken  off  is  in  the  skin  mainly  ;  that  when 
the  skin  is  cut  all  round  the  pain  is  not  so  severe.  And  in  transgres- 
sion the  skin  is  sensitive ;  men  suffer  at  first ;  then  they  go  on  with 
comparatively  little  feeling.  When  a  man  has  begun  to  appropriate, 
and  boiTow,  and  speculate,  and  make  false  entries,  he  feels  very  little 
until  the  disclosure  comes.  A  man  has  carried  on  such  a  course  for 
two  years,  perhaps,  and  lost  no  slefep.  He  has  been  unhappy  some- 
times, but  has  not  suffered  very  much.  By  and-by  the  time  of  disclosure 
comes,  and,  to  his  own  amazement,  there  comes  a  resurrection  of  moral 
sensibility  which  he  never  dreamed  of.  His  conscience  has  been  slum- 
bering; and  it  was  not  till  the  consequences  of  his  evil  conduct  stared 


SIN'S  RECOMPENSE.  33 

him  in  the  face,  it  was  not  until  the  law  threatened  him  with  public 
exposure  and  shame,  that  he  had  a  conception  of  the  full  extent  of  the 
wickedness  he  had  committed. 

You  shall  find  men  in  jail  who  are  profoundly  affected,  who  are 
whelmed  in  sorrow,  who  throw  themselves  down  upon  despau'  itself; 
and  yet  until  they  were  incarcerated  nothing  troubled  them,  though 
they  were  doing  all  the  wrongs  that  a  man  could  well  commit.  There 
are  many  persons  in  whom  conscience  is  not  strong  enough,  and 
not  educated  enough  to  report,  until  some  auxiliary  feeling,  such  as 
shame,  or  pride,  or  fear,  or  affection,  comes  in  to  aid  it,  and  give  it  tone 
and  intensity. 

So  men  who  do  wrong,  often,  as  long  as  it  is  secret,  do  not  feel 
that  it  is  wrong ;  but  the  moment  shame  begins  to  hiss  at  them  they 
begin  to  be  shot  through  with  real  pangs  of  conscience.  There  are. 
men  who,  though  they  have  done  wrong  again  and  again  and  again, 
are  not  troubled  by  it  until  they  learn  that  their  wife  and  children  are 
to  find  it  out.  Then  they  say,  "  Kill  me,  do  anything  to  me,  but  do 
not  let  it  go  back  to  my  family."  Their  cry  is  enough  to  pierce  the 
heavens ;  and  they  say,  "  Woe  is  me  !"  And  the  thing  which  drives 
conscience  home  like  a  fury  upon  them,  is  the  thought,  "  It  is  going  to 
be  made  known  to  those  whom  I  love,  and  it  will  ruin  my  children." 

Here  is  a  man  who  is  doing  wicked  things ;  looking  on  the  face 
of  his  children  does  not  restrain  him  ;  beholding  the  venerable  form  of 
his  father  and  mother,  by  whose  example  he  yet  hopes  to  go  to  heaven, 
does  not  restrain  him ;  but  by-and-by  a  disclosure  comes,  and  he  is 
brought  into  disgrace,  and  he  is  to  go  home  and  face  his  friends,  and 
it  rends  his  soul. 

This  is  another  instance  in  which  the  moral  sense  requkes  an  aux- 
iliary emotion  to  make  it  work ;  but  at  last  the  man's  conscience  is 
found.  His  reason  did  not  find  it.  His  reflections  did  not  awaken  it. 
His  love  did  not  stifiiulate  it.  All  the  ordinary  motives  did  not  insphe 
it.  But  when  shame  and  disgrace  came  upon  him,  it  developed  at  last 
this  latent  feeling  of  conscience. 

Oh !  if  men  could  have  as  lively  a  conscience  before  they  sin,  as 
after  they  have  been  exposed  in  sin,  how  it  would  stand  at  the  gate 
of  transgression  and  ward  men  off! 

^o,  too,  men  come  to  a  moral  sensibihty  by  those  various  cu-cum- 
stances  which  render  the  moral  sense  finer,  or  which  bring  home  upon 
them  the  rule  of  right  in  a  clearer  way. 

You  will  recollect  how,  when  Job  had  gone  thi-ough  all  his  wrest- 
lings with  his  companions,  and  he  came  at  last  into  the  hands  of  God, 
the  controversy  was  wound  up,  and  how  he  said, 

*'  Hear,  I  beseech  thee,  and  I  will  speak ;  I  will  demand  of  thee,  and 


34  SIN'S  RECOMPENSE. 

declare  thou  unto  me.  I  have  heard  of  thee  by  the  hearing  of  the  ear;  but 
now  mine  eye  seeth  thee ;  wherefore  I  abhor  myself,  and  repent  in  dust  and 
aslies." 

What  was  it  that  befel  Job  1  He  had  such  a  conception  of  the 
purity  and  holiness  of  God,  and  of  the  divine  law,  that  his  moral 
sense  was  lifted  up  immeasurably  higher  than  it  had  ever  been  before ; 
and  in  that  heightened  moral  tone  he  saw  himself  to  be  as  the  dust 
and  dirt  under  his  feet. 

It  pleases  God  sometimes  to  come  upon  men  who  have  been  living 
lives  of  high-handed  wickedness.  He  quickens  their  moral  sense. 
That  is  done  sometimes  by  afflictions.  I  have  known  men  reformed 
from  bad  courses  by  great  domestic  afflictions.  God  accepted  as  a 
sacrifice  their  darlings,  and  brought  them  into  a  state  of  sensibility  in 
which  they  developed  their  lives  very  diiferently  from  the  way  in 
which  they  had  ever  developed  them  before.  When  thus  the  truth  is 
brought  home  to  wicked  men's  lives,  they  have  such  a  conception  of 
God's  law,  of  his  judgment,  of  his  royalty,  and  of  his  presence  in 
human  affairs,  that  they  cannot  think  of  themselves  or  their  conduct 
as  they  did  before.  Sometimes  it  is  sickness ;  sometimes  it  is  bank- 
ruptcy ;  sometimes  it  is  the  loss  of  the  respect  of  men.  Many  things 
may  act  in  a  way  to  increase  the  sensibility  of  a  man's  moral  sense  ; 
and  that  very  moment  he  passes  to  a  different  judgment  of  his  conduct. 

But  sometimes  it  is  too  late.  I  have  known  men  who  looked 
back  on  their  youth,  and  said,  "  I  would  give  all  the  world  if  I  could 
wipe  out  ten  years  of  my  early  life."  I  have  known  men  to  mourn, 
and  say,  "  Why,  I  have  misled  scores  of  young  men  !"  I  have  known 
men  to  say,  "  I  have  destroyed  innocence  and  purity.  I  did  not  think 
of  it  or  care  about  it  at  the  time,  but  I  see  the  horrible  wickedness  of 
it  now,  and  my  soul  is  full  of  dark  regrets."  It  is  too  late.  I  have 
known  men  who,  during  a  certain  portion  of  their  business  life,  were 
as  greedy  as  a  shark,  and  as  merciful.  I  have  known  men  who  rent 
and  destroyed  those  round  about  them.  I  have  known  those  who 
made  wealth  by  the  most  outrageous  cruelties.  I  have  known  men 
who  carried  their  avarice  to  dishonesty.  But  after  they  had  passed 
through  a  certain  period,  it  pleased  God  to  intone  their  conscience,  and 
give  them  a  higher  moral  feeling ;  and  they  looked  back  and  sat  in 
judgment  upon  themselves,  abhored  themselves  in  dust  and  ashes, 
and  would,  if  they  could,  have  made  atonement  of  all  they  had 
amassed.  But  it  was  too  late.  They  could  not  retrace  their  steps. 
The  men  whom  they  had  wronged  were  scattered.  The  circumstances 
were  all  changed.  The  things  remained  that  they  had  earned.  But 
theii*  moral  sensibility  had  become  so  new  that  they  judged  very  differ- 
ently of  themselves. 

How  many  men  have  perverted  the  principles  of  young  men! 


Sm'S  EECOMPENSE.  35 

How  many  men  have  misled  the  young  in  their  faith,  and  sent  them 
into  infidelity  !  AnJ  afterwards  they  have  themselves  become  subjects 
of  saving  grace.  And  how  on  their  souls  lay  as  a  burden  the  fiict  that 
they  had  been  the  cause  of  leading  others  astray !  and  how  they  im- 
posed upon  themselves  penalties,  and  sought  to  make  reparation  for 
the  mischief  they  had  done, by  active  labors  for  men  !  But  it  was  too 
late.  It  is  better  late  than  never ;  but  with  what  mourning !  with 
what  sorrow  ! 

If  wicked  men  do  not  come  to  their  full  punishment  in  this  life, 
they  come  to  much  pain,  frequently.  They  come  to  a  moral  sensibility 
of  the  harm  that  wrong  inflicts.  And  there  is  to  come  a  tinje  when 
no  man  shall  escape.  There  is  to  come  a  time  when  no  deed  done  in 
the  body  shall  be  without  its  history;  when  every  wrong  word,  and 
every  wrong  thought,  and  every  wi'ong  feeling,  shall  rise  up  in  judg- 
ment against  us.  We  shall  be  required  to  give  an  account  of  all  the 
deeds  done  in  the  body.  There  is  to  be  a  day  of  reckoning.  There 
is  a  judgment  day  in  the  bones,  and  in  the  nerves,  and  in  the  stomach. 
There  is  a  judgment  day  in  the  heart  and  in  the  brain.  But  besides 
the  judgment  day  in  this  life,  there  is  to  be  a  day  of  reckoning  when 
God  shall  confront  men  with  his  own  holiness,  and  the  grandeur  of  his 
purity,  and  bring  before  them  their  recorded  lives,  and  every  man 
shall  see  what  he  has  done  in  the  body,  and  shall  give  an  account 
of  himself,  before  the  assembled  universe,  to  his  God.  And  oh !  if 
then,  if  then,  though  one  be  mightily  oj)pressed  with  a  sense  of  sin- 
fulness, he  can  see  that  the  sin  has  been  repented  of  and  forsaken,  and 
that  his  whole  heart  has  been  turned  from  it,  how  blessed  will  be  that 
day  !  But  if  one  comes  with  his  sins  upon  his  head,  and  his  life 
stained  with  them,  and  his  heart  corrupted  by  them  ;  if  he  comes  with 
his  whole  being  perverted  and  gnarled  by  selfishness,  and  avarice,  and 
hatred,  and  the  other  passions  of  his  lower  nature,  how  wretched  will 
be  his  lot ! 

When  Pilate  washed  his  hands,  and  said, "  I  am  innocent  of  the  blood 
of  this  just  man,"  the  crowd,  with  the  rulers  at  their  head,  cried  out, 
saying,  "  On  us,  and  on  our  children,  be  his  blood."  And  they  had 
their  way.  A  few  months  rolled  around,  and  the  same  disciples  who 
had  companied  with  Christ,  in  that  same  Jerusalem,  began, with  mighty 
and  wondrous  power  from  on  high,  to  preach  this  Christ  who  had  then 
gone  above  ;  and  the  whole  city  was  shaken.  And  the  rulers  seized 
them.  And  then,  when  they  began  to  feel  the  terrors  of  affliction  com  ■ 
ing  upon  them,  they  said  not  a  word.  They  were  determined  to  bring 
this  man's  blood  on  the  heads  of  others.  Ah  !  when  they  wanted  their 
own  way,  they  were  willing  to  take  the  risk  of  blood ;  but  when  they 


36  SIN'S  RECOMPENSE. 

had  their  own  way,  and  the  blood  began  to  come  down  upon  them, 
they  cried  out  against  it. 

There  is  many  a  man  that  takes  a  wicked  course  in  life,  saying,  "  I 
will  take  the  consequences ;"  but  when  the  consequences  come,  they 
would  fain  avoid  them.  But  it  cannot  be.  And  how  much  worse  il 
the  evil  of  it  is  deferred  to  the  other  land,  and  one  stands  in  the  pre- 
cinct of  heaven,  beholds  the  light  and  the  glory,  hears  afar  off  the  sweet 
and  refreshing  sound,  sees  far  above  him  the  poor  whom  he  despised 
on  earth,  and  far  below  him  those  who  on  earth  were  crowned,  and 
when  he  says,  "  Lord,  open  unto  me,"  hears  a  voice  in  tones  to  which 
thunder  would  be  as  music,  say,  "  I  never  knew  you  :  depart  from  me, 
ye  that  Avork  iniquity  !" 

Thex'e  is  such  a  thing  as  sin ;  and  there  is  danger  in  sin — danger  to 
the  body  ;  danger  to  the  understanding ;  danger  to  the  affections  ; 
danger  to  the  taste  and  the  imagination ;  danger  to  the  conscience  ; 
dansrer  in  this  life;  and,  above  all,  most  appalling  danger  in  the  life 
that  is  to  come.  For,  as  a  man  dies,  so  shall  he  rise  again.  As  he 
leaves  this  world,  so  he  starts  in  the  other.  If  he  is  environed  with  evil 
habits,  if  he  is  filled  full  of  sins  and  transgressions,  that  is  the  capital 
with  which  he  begins  in  the  life  that  is  to  come. 

I  beseech  of  you,  my  young  friends,  so  many  of  you  as  have  come 
down  hither,  not  to  be  misled  by  the  vain  show  of  the  world  into  which 
you  are  introduced.  I  beseech  of  you  who  have  come  hither  recently, 
and  are  already  beginning,  in  the  place  where  you  are,  to  be  ashamed 
of  your  Bibles,  and  are  forgetting  the  promises  which  you  made  to  your 
mothers,  and  the  vows  which  you  made  to  yourselves,  do  not  suffer 
yourselves  to  be  snared.  Surely,  in  vain  is  the  fowler's  snare  set  in  the 
sight  of  the  bird ;  but  these  snares  are  set  right  in  your  sight,  and  you 
put  year  foot  in  them,  and  are  caught. 

I  beseech  of  you,  believe  in  virtue ;  believe  in  truth  ;  believe  in 
honesty  and  fidelity ;  believe  in  honor ;  believe  in  God  ;  believe  in 
God's  law  and  in  God's  providence.  Put  your  trust  in  God,  and  in  the 
faith  of  God,  and  not  in  the  seeming  of  deceitful  and  apparently  pros- 
perous men.  Let  no  man  witch  your  soul  from  you ;  let  no  man  daz- 
zle your  understanding  from  you ;  let  no  man  by  any  sinuous  courses 
draw  you  aside  from  that  straight  and  narrow  way  where  there  is 
safety.  And  whatever  else  you  get,  have  peace,  every  day,  with  your 
own  conscience.  AVhoever  else  you  offend,  do  not  offend  your  God. 
Keep  him  on  your  side.  '  Do  what  is  right,  aud  then  fear  no  man.  Do 
what  is  right,  and  trust  in  God,  and  all  the  world  cannot  hurt  you. 
Neither  time,  nor  death,  nor  eternity  can  harm  those  who  follow  the 
light  that  God  throws  upon  their  path.  And  for  all  imperfections  trust 
to  his  gi-acious  and  forgiving  love. 


SIN'S  RECOMPENSE.  37 

PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

Thou  ever-blessed  God,  our  souls  rejoice  in  thee.  We  rejoice  in  thee  by 
the  morning  and  by  the  evening.  In  every  season,  in  sorrow,  in  prosperity, 
under  all  experiences  of  life,  we  find  thee  to  be  our  strength,  and  peace,  and 
joy.  Thou  canst  make  up  to  us  in  thine  own  presence,  all  our  outward 
losses.  What  time  we  are  willing  to  renounce  everything  that  separates  us 
from  thee,  and  take  thee  as  our  covenant  portion,  we  find  that  we  are  lifted 
up  by  thy  presence,  and  by  thy  power  blessed  supremely.  Nor  is  it  needful 
that  we  should  have  the  favor  of  men,  nor  that  we  should  have  the  streno-th 
of  riches,  nor  even  that  we  should  stand  in  all  the  enjoyments  of  love;  lor 
thou  canst  bless  sickness  itself  Thou  canst  make  poverty  full  of  riches. 
Thou  canst  give  us  in  our  solitude  the  sense  of  divine  company.  Tiiou 
canst  grant  even  when  all  the  world  is  dark  to  us,  the  light  of  that  other 
world  in  overmeasure,  and  perfectly,  so  that  death  is  robbed  of  its  terror, 
and  afflictions  and  disappointments  no  longer  have  dominion  over  us.  By 
thy  spirit  we  are  able  to  rise  above  all  things,  and  to  count  it  joy  when  we 
fall  into  divers  trials.  We  rejoice  in  afl[lictions  and  infirmities,  that  the 
honor  of  God  may  be  made  manifest  in  us. 

Oh  !  how  great  is  the  wonder  of  that  grace  which  thou  hast  shown  us 
in  our  ordinary  experience !  Grant  us  to  be  crowned,  though  unknown,  as 
the  very  sons  of  God. 

We  rejoice,  O  God,  in  the  past  manifestations  which  thou  hast  made  of 
thyself;  in  the  blessedness  of  that  experience  which  enables  so  many  to  be 
witnesses  for  Christ.  What  thou  hast  done  for  us  in  some  measure  we  know ; 
and  yet,  in  greater  measure  it  is  to  be  revealed  hereafter.  But  we  know 
that  we  have  in  a  thousand  ways  been  sustained,  and  comforted,  and  strength- 
ened, and  enriched,  and  guarded,  and  defended,  when  our  own  helplessness 
was  set  upon  by  great  and  grievous  evils.  Thou,  O  God,  hast  set  thine  an- 
gels to  guard  us.  We  have  been  lifted  up  by  thee  and  borne  over  the  diffi- 
culties. And  we  rejoice  in  thy  faithfulness.  And  we  desire  to  walk  ever- 
more under  the  protection  of  thy  wing.  We  desire  so  to  live  that  we  can 
have  access  to  thee  and  put  our  trust  in  thee  from  day  to  day.  Deliver  us 
from  the  power  of  temptation,  from  pride,  from  selfishness,  from  all  inordi- 
nate passions :  from  every  envious  and  jealous  and  wicked  way.  Purify 
our  hearts.  Grant  that  they  may  become  as  temi^les  of  the  living  God. 
Dwell  thou  in  us,  that  all  our  feelings  may  be  sweet,  and  all  our  thoughts 
right,  and  every  affection  pure ;  that  we  may  seek  the  best  things,  for  men 
and  among  men,  and  seek  earthly  things  evermore  as  strangers  and  pilgrims 
looking  up  and  beyond  for  our  true  home.  Grant  that  our  Father's  house 
may  send  down  welcomes  to  us  all  along  the  way,  by  which  we  are  travel- 
ing toward  it.  May  we  see  thy  messengers.  May  we  accept  their  ^ifts  and 
glorify  God. 

And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  our  life  may  encourage 
others  to  live  in  all  true  faith.  Grant  that  the  power  of  Christ  may  be  man- 
ifested in  the  awakening  of  men  ;  in  bringing  them  from  evil  ways ;  in 
changing  their  lives ;  in  bringing  them  to  the  Prince  and  the  Saviour.  Grant 
that  there  may  be  great  turning  from  wickedness.  May  men  be  reformed 
from  evil  habits.  May  men  be  turned  away  from  the  things  which  perish 
in  the  using,  and  from  those  things  which  defile  them  and  make  them  un- 
worthy of  themselves,  unworthy  of  their  divine  parentage,  unworthy  of  thy 
favor,  unsafe,  wretched  here,  and  wretched  hereafter.  Deliver  those  that 
are  thralled  in  the  snare  laid  for  the  innocent. 

We  beseech  thee  that  thou  wilt  guide  all  that  are  young.  Teach  them 
early  integrity.  May  they  know  how  to  be  truthful,  honest  and  faithful; 
how  to  be  industrious  and  frugal ;  how  to  prosper  in  this  life  without  break- 
ing the  law  of  God.  And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  enable  those  that 
arc  gathering  strength  in  outward  abundance,  to  consecrate  all  that  they 


38  SIN'S  RECOMPENSE. 

have  to  the  service  of  God.  And  may  they  not  live  to  build  themselves  up  in 
selfishness.  May  they  learn  that  their  happiness  is  in  beneficence.  And  we 
pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  we,  and  ihe  generation  of  men  who  are  spring- 
ing up  from  out  of  our  midst,  may  be  more  earnest,  more  spiritual,  more 
truly  benevolent,  more  self-denying  and  more  Christ-like  than  we  have 
been. 

And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  the  Churches  in  this  city,  and  thy 
dear  servants  that  are  preaching  thy  Gospel.  And  we  pray  thee  that  thou 
wilt  correct  whatever  errors  fall  out ;  and  that  thou  wilt  multiply  the  num- 
ber of  those  that  are  spreading  the  truth,  and  bless  abundantly  their  minis- 
trations. Unite  the  people  together  more  and  more.  And  we  pray  that 
they  may  join  hands,  and  go  on  together.  Since  there  is  so  wide-spread  in- 
iquity, and  since  the  causes  of  evil  are  working  hard,  grant  that  all  thy  peo- 
ple may  lay  aside  jealousies  and  dissensions,  and  be  united  together  in  mu- 
tual confidence,  and  live  in  the  faith  of  God,  and  go  forward  from  conquer- 
ing to  conquer. 

Let  thy  kingdom  come  everywhere.    Fill  the  earth  with  thy  glory. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise,  forevermore.    Amen. 


-*••- 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  heavenly  Father,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest 
upon  the  words  of  exhortation  and  warning  which  we  have  spoken.  We 
beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  take  care  of  those  that  are  inexperienced  ;  of 
those  that  are  tempted  ;  of  those  that  are  partly  led  away.  Look  upon  any 
that  are  thralled.  Look  upon  any  that  have  tasted  and  found  the  bitterness 
and  deceitfulness  of  sin,  and  that  fain  would  come  back  again.  Oh  1  be 
gentle  with  them.  Oh!  be  patient  with  them.  Dear  Saviour,  teach  us  to 
be  gentle.     Teach  us  how  to  bring  them  back  again. 

And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  inspire  hope  in  any  that  are  des- 
pairing ;  in  any  that  think  they  have  lived  too  long  in  sin,  and  thrown 
away  all  their  opportunities.  O  Lord  God !  we  pray  that  the  age  of  hope 
may  dawn  upon  their  minds,  and  that  they  may  not  count  themselves  ap- 
pointed for  destruction.  Who  can  be  banished  from  thee  ?  Who  can  lose 
heaven  ?    We  cannot  give  thee  up.    Do  not  thou  give  us  up. 

Lord  God  of  our  fathers,  hear  the  prayers  that  have  been  uttered  for  us. 
Give  us  Uetter  minds.  Bring  us  back  to  thee  and  loyalty.  And  grant,  we 
beseech  of  thee,  that  there  may  be  many  in  this  congregation  whose  hearts 
shall  be  touched  to  night,  and  whose  consciences  shall  be  wounded.  May 
the  voice  of  God  be  heard  in  the  silent  and  secret  passages  of  their  souls. 
Speak  to  them,  and  bring  them  back  from  sin.  And  grant,  we  pray  thee, 
that,  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  there  may  be  many  hearts  cleansed, 
and  many  sins  forgiven,  and  newness  of  life  given  to  many. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise.  Father,  Son  and  Spirit,  evermore. 
Amen. 


III. 
The  Sufficiency  of  Jesus. 


INVOCATION. 

We  have  gathered  together  again,  our  heavenly  Father,  called  by  thy 
voice,  drawn  by  the  importunity  of  thy  love ;  for  thou  hast  somewhat  to  say 
unto  us,  and  something  to  grant  out  of  thine  infinite  store  of  love,  and  treas- 
ure of  mercy.  Thou  canst  give  forth  that  which  we  need,  for  which  we 
pine,  and  without  which  we  die.  We  pray  that  we  may  have  faith  given  to 
us,  to  look  up  and  call  thee  Father,  and  to  be  healed  from  all  our  sins,  in 
the  consciousness  of  thy  love  and  mercy.  Grant  unto  us  that  resurrection  of 
hope,  that  joy  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  that  clearness  of  apprehension,  that  knowl- 
edge of  the  truth,  which  is  wrought  by  thy  Spirit.  And  may  the  service  of 
thy  sanctuary  to-day  be  altogether  divine  and  blessed  to  us.  In  singing,  in 
prayer,  in  reading,  in  meditation,  in  instruction,  in  all  things,  may  we  have 
thy  guidance  and  thy  help,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  JLmen, 
3 


THE  SUEFICIEICY  OP  JESUS. 


"  Looking  unto  Jesus,  the  author  and  finisher  of  our  faith,  who,  for  the 
joy  that  was  set  before  him,  endured  the  cross,  despising  the  shame,  and  is 
set  down  at  the  right  hand  of  the  throne  of  God," — Heb.  XII.,  3. 


The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  wTiichi  for  a  long  time  was  ascribed  to 
the  apostle  Paul,  but  which,  it  seems  to  me,  no  man  who  ever  felt  what 
Paul's  style  was  could  for  a  moment  believe  that  he  wrote — for  as  near 
as  I  can  recollect,  the  word  I  does  not  appear  in  the  Epistle  to  the  He 
brews  once  from  beginning  to  end,  and  it  is  simply  impossible  that 
Paul  should  have  written  as  much  as  that  and  not  brought  in  Za  hun- 
dred times ;  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  which  the  best  modern  schol- 
arship is  now  more  and  more  ascribing  to  ApoUos,  mighty  in  Scripture, 
presents  (although  through  the  medium  of  the  old  Jewish  ideas,  and 
therefore  comparatively  to  the  Jewish  want)  the  noblest  aspect  of  the 
hopeful  side  of  God  which  is  contained,  perhaps,  in  any  of  the  Epistles 
of  the  New  Testament.  It  contains,  not,  perhaps,  more  that  touches 
us,  but  more  that  would  have  touched  the  educated  imagination  of  a 
truly  spiritual  Jew,  than  any  other  one  of  all  the  Epistles.  And  the 
view  given  of  Christ,  of  God  as  represented  by  Christ,  all  the  way 
through,  is  full  of  the  tenderest  encouragement  and  of  the  greatest 
beauty. 

In  that  portion  from  which  we  have  selected  our  text,  the  writer 
had  been  discussing  the  matter  of  faith,  meaning  by  that  the  higher 
exercise  of  the  moral  faculties  of  the  mind ;  or,  living,  not  by  the  animal 
economy,  and  by  the  animal  passions,  but  by  the  reason  and  the  moral 
sentiments,  whose  action  is  always  in  a  sj^here  higher  than  that  of 
sense,  or  of  matter. 

From  the  earliest  age,  there  had  been  those  who  had  lived  more  or 
less  perfectly  by  this  nobler  conception  of  life,  and  in  the  presence  of 
invisible  things.  And  although  it  was  not  a  life  that  could  compare 
with  that  of  those  who  live  now,  or  who  have  lived  since  that  time,  we 
are  to  remember  that,  iii  the  early  day,  the  disclosures  of  truth  were  very 
limited,  and  that,  to  live  as  Abraham  did,  as  the  patriarchs  did,  and  as 
the  prophets  did,  required  far  more  faith  than  to  live  in  that  wise  in 

SiTVTiAY  Morning,  Sept.  25,  1870.    The  first  service  after  the  Summer  vaoation.    Lesson 
Heb.  XII.,  1-25.     Hiii.Nd  (Plymouth  CoUection),  514,  217. 


40  THE  SUFFICIENCY  OF  JESUS. 

our  day,  when  so  much  more  has  been  given  to  us.  This  conviction  of 
spiritual  truth  had  held  men  in  all  past  times,  the  writer  says,  to  the 
highest  achievements  of  humanity.  They  had  borne ;  they  had  suffere-^  ; 
they  had  achieved  wonders :  and  all  by  this  power  of  faith — this  sense 
of  truth  invisible. 

He  then  goes  on  to  sum  up  and  marshal  the  eminent  names  of  the 
ages,  one  by  one.  He  recounts  theii"  principal  achievements.  And 
when  the  last  is  completed,  or  rather  summarized  in  the  end,  when 
the  hearers  are  full  of  these  venerable  associations,  he  declares  that 
the  shadows  of  all  these  noble  spirits  overhang  them,  and  are  specta- 
tors of  theii'  strife.  All  those  who,  gathered  out  of  the  thousands  of 
years  preceding,  had  gone  home  to  glory,  waited,  as  it  were,  on  the 
threshold  of  heaven,  on  the  borders  of  that  land,  to  look  out  upon  its, 
and  upon  those  of  every  age  who  are  making  the  same  fight  which 
they  made.  They  watch  the  progress  of  the  conflict,  and  wait  till,  one 
after  another,  all  that  are  called  come  through  to  their  victory.  And 
they,  too,  in  turn,  become  spectators,  as  it  were,  in  sympathy,  and 
participants  again  in  the  same  strife  in  others  which  they  had  victori- 
ously waged- 

In  this  august  assembly,  the  highest  name  of  all  sufferers  is  the 
name  of  Jesus.  He,  too,  is  looking  upon  our  life  struggle  ;  he,  too. 
Math  all  that  have  gone  before  from  among  men,  is  watching  those  who 
are  coming  along  on  this  road.  He  is  presented  to  us,  not  as  watching 
fi'om  curiosity  ;  not  as  watching  merely  from  enthusiasm. 

On  the  heights  above  Sedan,  during  that  terrific  conflict,  there  were 
two  watchers.  One,  Sheridan,  om*  own  man,  watched  with  all  the 
enthusiasm  of  a  warrior ;  but  in  the  vast  host  before  him  it  is  not  prob- 
able that  there  was  one  person  in  whose  veins  his  blood  beat.  Right  by 
his  side  King  William  watched ;  and  there  were  both  of  his  sons  lead- 
ing jDarts  of  that  gigantic  army.  And  though  both  of  them — the  king 
and  the  general — were  warriors  and  watchers,  the  king  s  heart  was  in 
his  eye.  His  was,  therefore,  the  outlook,  not  merely  of  generalship,  but 
of  paternal  love  as  well. 

Now,  Christ  is  watching,  from  heaven,  those  m  whom  his  heart  is, 
and  in  whom  his  blood  is.  He  is  watching  paternally,  and  not  merely 
as  a  spectator  would  watch  in  the  excitement  of  a  contest. 

This  presentation  of  Jesus  is  not  on  that  side  where  the  divine 
attributes  mostly  are  brought  out.  We  know  only  so  much  of  God 
as  can  be  likened  to  something  corresponding  to  Him  in  man  ;  and 
therefore  it  is  that  by  searching  we  shall  never  find  out  the  Almighty 
to  perfection.  That  which  is  distinct  from  man  is  unknown  and  un- 
knowable. That  which,  as  it  were,  is  the  beginning,  or  elementary 
part,  of  the  divine  nature,  is  so  like  man,  that,  being  made  in  the  image 


THE  SUFFICIENCY  OF  JESUS.  41 

of  God,  wc  can  understand  it ;  but,  going  on,  we  soon  lose  company. 
For  that  which  is  peculiarly  and  distinctively  divine  as  separate  from  all 
luunan  parallel  or  likeness,  we  have  no  means  of  understanding.  That 
goes  on  beyond  comprehension.  It  is  not  that  part  of  the  divine  na- 
ture, therefore,  which  the  writer  attempts  to  set  forth,  but  only  that 
part  which,  in  the  Bible,  is  likened  to  something  in  man.  This  has  been 
much  objected  to  by  philosophers  and  theologians — anthropomorph- 
ism, as  it  is  called,  or  the  likening  of  God  to  man.  But  to  deny  this 
mode  of  representation  is  substantially  to  destroy  the  possibility  of 
knowing  God,  and  is  to  make  atheism  the  only  possible  ground  on 
which  man  can  stand.  More,  perhaps,  than  any  other  part  of  the  New 
Testament,  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  develoj^s  the  tender  and  sym- 
pathetic side  of  God's  nature,  as  represented  in  Christ.  Hence,  in 
Christ,  the  throne  of  Government  is  represented  as  filled,  not  so  much 
by  law,  not  so  much  by  penalty,  not  so  much  by  rigor,  not  so  much 
by  power  and  authority,  as  by  the  sympathy  of  love.  He  came,  not 
for  judgment,  but  for  mercy,  and  in  consonance  with  this  view  which 
he  |oroclaims  of  himself  all  the  way  through  the  writings  of  the 
apostles.  While  they  did  not  ignore  law  and  government,  they  pre- 
dominatingly represented  Christ  as  the  presentation  of  God's  law  of 
love  and  mercy  to  the  world.  Law  underlies  everything.  We  do  not 
need  to  prove  that.  It  is  the  organic  law  of  creation.  It  exists.  We 
know  that,  because  it  is  constantly  falling  upon  us — or  we  upon  it. 
'Men  stumble  over  it  all  the  time,  on  every  side,  and  every  day.  There 
is  no  need,  therefore,  of  vindicating  law.  It  takes  care  of  itself  A 
release  from  transgressed  law  is  that  which  needs  to  be  advocated  and 
to  be  made  plain.  Sympathy  and  helpfulness  on  the  divine  side  toward 
those  who  have  broken  law,  and  have  set  at  naught  the  divine  govern- 
ment— this  is  the  necessity ;  and  this  is  that  which  the  apostle — or  the 
writer,  if  it  be  Apollos — here  chiefly  does.  He  presents  a  view  of  God 
in  marked  contrast  with  the  heathen  notion.  For,  although  there  were 
traits  of  excellence,  the  general  idea  of  the  heathen  gods  was  that 
of  an  essential  monarch,  with  a  concentrated  selfishness  of  purpose, 
and  with  arbitrary  power  for  the  accomplishment  of  results.  The 
view  of  God  presented  after  the  revelation  in  Jesus  Christ,  is  a  view 
of  divine  mercy,  divine  sympathy,  and  divine  helpfulness.  And  it  is 
toward  this  that  we  are  commanded  to  look  in  every  time  of  need. 

"  Looking  unto  Jesus,  the  author  and  finisher  of  our  faith;  who,  for  the 
joy  that  was  set  before  him,  endured  the  cross,  despising  the  shame;  and  is 
set  down  at  the  right  hand  of  the  throne  of  God." 

When  we  are  in  trouble,  whatever  that  trouble  may  have  arisen 
from — whether  from  sin,  or  from  conscience,  or  from  aflTection,  or 
from  remorse,  or  from  bereavement — the  command  is,  Look  to 
Jesus,    the   author  and  finisher  of  your  faith — not   to  Jehovah, 


42  THE  SUFFICIENCY  OF  JESUS. 

if  by  Jehovah  you  mean  the  God  of  law ;  not  to  God,  as  administer- 
ing penalty ;  but  to  Jesus,  who  stands,  to  the  universal  human  heart, 
as  the  representative  of  recovering  mercy.  We  are  to  look  to  pity, 
to  sympathizing  sorrow,  in  the  hand  of  God.  In  every  trouble,  and 
in  every  temptation  of  trouble,  look  to  that  side  of  the  divine  nature 
— not  at  the  clouds ;  not  at  the  mountain  that  bm-ned  with  fire ; 
not  at  that  which  was  clothed  with  darkness,  and  out  of  which  thunder 
spoke.  That  was ,  the  older  dispensation.  The  same  wiiter,  in  the 
same  chapter,  which  I  read  in  the  opening  service,  said, 

"  Ye  are  come  unto  Mount  Zion,  and  unto  the  city  of  the  living  God, 
the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  and  to  an  innumerable  company  of  angels,  to  the 
general  assembly  and  church  of  the  first-born,  which  are  written  in  heaven." 

•  In  other  words,  we  are  come  to  that  side  of  the  divine  nature  which 
represents  rescue,  release,  recovery,  salvation,  and  eternal  joy.  All 
through  the  chapter,  it  is,  "  In  your  struggle  of  life,  watched  by  ten 
thousand  witnesses,  who  have  been  through  life  as  you  have  been,  and 
are  now  safe,  look  to  Jesus  for  rescue.  Look  not  to  the  terrible  side  of 
the  divine  government,  but  to  the  merciful  side.  Look  to  Him  who 
has  been  tempted  in  all  points  like  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin — a 
merciful  High-priest  who  can  be  touched  with  a  feeling  of  our  in- 
firmities ;  who  has  suffered  in  our  stead,  that  we  might  not  suffer.'' 
We  are  commanded  to  look  to  that  aspect  of  the  divine  government  in 
all  our  trouble. 

If  this  be  the  representation  which  is  made,  it  presents  a  use  for 
Christ  of  the  most  practical  character ;  and  it  is  the  practical  side  of  this 
exhortation  to  which  I  mainly  shall  address  myself  this  morning. 

In  view  of  this  exhortation  I  remark, 

1.  Those  who  feel  no  need  of  Christ ;  those  who  never  are  impelled 
to  look  to  Him ;  those  who  have  no  conscious  dependence  upon  Him, 
are,  according  to  the  teaching  of  this  Scripture,  disowned  of  God,  and 
are  bastards.  In  other  words,  the  condition  in  which  we  find  our- 
selves in  this  world,  is  one  which  begins  with  imperfections,  and  imper- 
fections which  lead  inevitably  to  sins  of  one  kind  and  another.  The 
world  has  racked  its  brains  to  understand  how  sin  entered  the  world ; 
and  theories  and  explanations  without  end  have  been  put  forth  ;  but  I 
understand  sin  to  be  simply  the  ignorance  of  men  as  to  how  to  carry 
the  faculties  which  they  have  in  them — not  merely  theh  ignorance,  but 
in  connection  with  that  ignorance  the  want  of  that  moral  develop- 
ment which  shall  enable  them  to  carry  all  parts  of  theii-  soul  skilfully, 
harmoniously,  and  rightly.  Sin,  therefore,  regarded  as  the  out- 
working of  the  imperfection  of  this  system,  came  in  with  the  com- 
ing in  of  creation  itself  You  cannot  create  men  at  the  seminal  point. 
It  being  the  problem  of  the  universe  to  develop  a  race  of  creatures, 
step  by  step,  to  the  veiy  highest  point,  it  is  utterly  impossible  that 


TEE  SUFFICIENCY  OF  JESUS.  43' 

there  should  be  such  a  system  instituted  in  the  world  as  that  human 
beings  should  be  wise  from  the  beginning.  We  have  the  problem 
of  the  introduction  of  sin  in  our  own  families,  every  one  of  us.  Our 
childi-en  are  born,  not  men,  but  babies.  They  are  born  ignorant, 
and  inexpert.  Every  boy  and  every  gui  has  to  learn,  through  years,  to 
think  and  to  feel,  and  the  laws  of  thinking  and  feeling.  Every  child 
studies  about  his  foot,  and  hand,  and  eye,  and  every  sense,  all  through 
his  nature  ;  and  the  household  shields  him,  and  economizes  his  mistakes 
so  as  to  educate  him,  and  bring  him  up  so  that  he  shall  know  how  to 
use  himself.  That  is  only  over  again  in  the  family  just  the  same  thing 
that  took  place  on  the  grand  scale  of  the  whole  world.  All  the  race 
was^orn  in  infancy ;  and,  as  a  child  finds  his  way  through  inexperience, 
so  the  race  find  their  way  through  inexperience.  And  sins  are  simply 
the  faults  which  fall  out  from  the  want  of  knowledge,  and  from  the 
want  of  motive-power  to  do  the  things  which  are  right  in  men. 

Now,  this  want  of  experience,  this  want  of  knowledge,  this  ine- 
qualit5^  of  faculty,  this  jar  and  conflict,  this  discord,  is  universal. 
There  is  not  a  man  born,  and  there  never  was  a  man  born,  who  knew 
how  to  carry  himself  so  as  not  to  go  into  moral  discords. 

Men  do  not  like  the  term  total  depravity.  Nor  do  I ;  and  I  never 
use  it.  And  I  do  not  like  the  thing  itself.  But  you  might  as  well 
expect  to  find  a  man  born  a  hundred  years  old,  as  to  expect  to  find  a 
man  born  without  a  depraved  nature.  When  you  shall  find  me  a 
child  knowing  all  arithmetic  at  one  year  old,  expert  in  all  music  at  one 
year  old,  a  universal  historian  at  one  year  old,  an  athlete  at  one  year 
old,  fnll  of  all  temporal  wisdom  at  one  year  old,  then,  and  not  before,  I 
will  find  you  another  child  that  is  born  into  this  world  expert  in  all  vu'- 
tue,  in  all  truth,  in  all  moral  purity,  in  all  upward  tendencies.  The  fact 
is,  men  are  born  at  the  lowest  point  of  the  scale,  and  work  then  way 
up  through  cycles  of  inexperience  and  mistakes  and  transgressions  to 
the  highest  point.  Audit  is  not  a  slander  to  say  that  men  are  de- 
praved, unless  it  be  a  slander  to  say  that  this  is  the  method  of  the 
divine  creation,  or  that  this  is  the  way  that  the  world  is  organized.  K 
there  be  one  truth  that  shall  stand  and  burn  after  all  theologies  shall 
have  passed  away,  or  shall  have  changed,  it  is  this  truth  of  universal 
decrepitude,  universal  weakness  in  good,  or  universal  imperfection, 
running,  in  adult  states,  to  transgressions,  and  becoming  sinful,  so  that 
every  man  in  the  race,  with  every  particular  faculty  of  his  nature,  sins, 
has  sinned,  and  continues  to  sin.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  universal 
sinfulness, — if  you  prefer  that  phrase  to  universal  depravity  ;  choose 
your  own  language,  so  that  you  do  not  escape  from  the  mom-nful, 
melancholy  fact  that  the  whole  race  is  sinful. 

Now,  for  a  man  to  stand  contented  in  this  moral  state  is  as  igno- 


44  THE  SUFFICIENCY  OF  JESUS. 

minions  in  the  sight  of  God,  and  a  thousand  times  more  so^  as  in 
our  sight  it  is  for  one  to  be  ignorant  in  secular  affairs.  It  is  a  stigma 
upon  a  man,  unless  he  is  a  foreigner,  to  say  that  he  cannot  read  and 
write.  We  always  make  a  distinction  in  judgment  if  we  know  that 
a  man  has  come  from  abroad,  where  he  has  had  no  opportunities  for 
instruction,  and  where  he  has  been  subjected  to  squalid  poverty  and 
brute  opjDression.  We  excuse  a  man's  ignorance  under  such  circum- 
stances. But  for  a  native-born  American,  north  of  Mason's  and  Dix- 
on's line,  not  to  be  able  to  read  and  write,  is  a  disgrace  that  marks 
him  out  in  the  whole  village,  and  throughout  all  the  neighborhood. 
Secular  ignorance  is  a  disgi'ace  among  men.  And  as  moral  excellence 
is  greater  than  mere  intellectual  and  secular  excellence,  so  moral 
ignorance  is  greater  than  intellectual  or  secular  ignorance ;  and  con- 
tentment in  it  is  degrading  and  unmanly. 

Any  man,  then,  who,  being  sinful  before  God,  and  coming  short  in 
every  faculty  and  part  of  his  nature,  asj)ires  to  rise  out  of  that  state,  and 
come  to  a  higher  experience,  and  attempts  it,  very  soon  feels  his  need 
of  a  schoolmaster,  and  of  a  schoolmaster,  not  that  has  a  rod,  but  that 
has  kindness.  Every  man  who  has  aspiration,  and  who  feels  that  he 
must  grow  in  nobleness,  in  purity,  in  self-government,  in  beneficence, 
in  every  element  of  a  true  manhood,  comes  to  feel  that  such  growth 
requires  that  there  shall  be  something  to  help  him  from  above. 

Here,  the  clouds  gather  so  soon  about  us,  we  become  discouraged 
so  soon,  we  are  so  little  able  to  be  our  own  models,  we  fall  into  such 
biases  and  into  such  temptations,  that  if  we  have  not  some  shining 
mark  before  us,  we  soon  grow  into  forgetfulness  or  discouragement. 
Therefore  it  is  that  we  have  the  pattern  man,  Jesus  Christ — God  repre- 
sented in  the  spirit  of  man;  theref(5re  it  is  that  we  have  the  divine 
attributes  presented  in  the  form  of  human  faculties  and  experiences. 
And  we  are  commanded  to  look  to  him  in  this  life  struggle,  in  this 
w/)rk  of  education,  and  of  emancipation  from  lower  stages  into  a 
higher  condition.     Look  to  Jesus. 

There  are  many  who  are  content,  however,  with  simply  a  develop- 
ment into  the  society  idea.  So  that  they  have  health,  and  position  in 
life,  that  satisfies  them.  I  have  heard  men  of  excellent  parts  in  other 
things  saying  that  they  see  no  use  of  heaven  ;  that  this  world  is  good 
enough  for  them.  Since  then  I  have  seen  their  cradle  turned  bottom- 
side  up.  Since  then  I  have  seen  their  till  emj^tied.  Since  then  I  have 
seen  them  making  settlement  of  bankrupt  estates.  Since  then  I  have 
seen  their  names  cast  out,  and  them  hunted.  It  is  a  very  different 
tiling,  in  the  beginning  of  life,  to  say  that  the  world  is  good  enough 
fur  you,  from  what  it  is  at  the  end  of  life.  When  they  have  gone 
through  from  first  to  last,  and  taken  the  good  or  evil  of  life,  few  men 


THE  SUFFIGIENCT  OF  JESUS.  45 

say  that.  Few  men  who  have  come  to  gray  hairs  utter  any  such  non- 
sense as  "  This  world  is  good  enough  for  mc."  Of  any  man  who 
says  tliat,  God  says,  "lie  is  not  a  child  ;  he  is  a  bastard." 

If  in  this  life  you  endure  chastening ;  if  you  have  those  little  strug- 
gles winch  bring  you  in  conflict  with  your  various  surroundings,  so 
that  you  are  pressed  down  with  disappointments  and  trials,  which  are 
God's  chastisements  upon  you,  it  is  a  sign  that  you  are  ambitious ;  it  is 
a  sign  that  you  want  to  rise  to  a  higher  estate ;  it  is  a  sign  that  you  are 
a  son  ot  God.  This  ambition  to  be  something  high  is  a  sign  of  nobility- 
But  if  you  have  no  struggles,  it  is  a  sign  that  you  are  not  carrying 
yourself  against  anything.  And  if  you  are  not,  it  is  because  you  are 
torpid  and  stupid,  and  not  noble,  and  therefore  are  not  a  son  of  God. 

"If  ye  endure  chastening,  God  dealeth  with  you  as  with  sons;  for  what 
son  is  he  whom  the  father  chasteneth  not?  But  if  ye  b3  without  chastise- 
ment, whereof  all  are  partakers,  then  are  ye  bastards,  and  not  sons." 

God  will  not  own  you  if  you  have  not  experienced  suffering. 

We  are  not  to  interpret  this  so  as  to  exclude  providential  troubles ; 
but  the  accent  and  emphasis  is  not  to  be  on  the  thought  that  God  deals 
with  us  as  with  sons,  when  he  deals  with  us  by  providential  afflic- 
tions. All  the  struggles  which  come  from  the  desire  of  man  to  eman- 
cipate himself  from  the  lower  conditions  of  life ;  all  those  conflicts 
which  grow  uj)  in  a  man  who  is  determined  in  his  lieart  to  repress  in- 
oi-dinate  pride,  and  beat  down  vanity,  and  restrain  lust,  and  make  a 
new  man  of  himself — they  are  the  chastisements  of  God.  And  the 
laying  on  of  these  sufierings  is  an  indication  that  God  perceives  that 
you  are  striving  for  the  higher  life.  He  is  dealing  with  you,  therefore, 
in  all  helpfulness,  as  with  a  child.  But  if  you  have  none  of  these 
things,  God  sees  that  you  are  not  his  son.  Tlie  want  of  sufl"ering,  and 
strife,  and  sorrow,  and  penitence,  and  despondency,  and  aspiration, 
and  yearning,  indicates  that  you  are  ignoble,  and  out  of  the  divine 
family. 

Hence,  they  who  pity  men  that  suffer  a  great  deal  about  their  re- 
ligion, are  themselves  to  be  pitied.  That  is  the  condition  of  thousands 
of  persons  who  look  upon  church-members  as  pitiable.  Many  of  them 
are  pitiable.  There  are  persons  who  look  upon  all  that  are  seeking  a 
religious  life  as  pitiable,  because  they  do  not  have  liberty  ;  because  they 
are  tied  up  ;  because  they  cannot  enjoy  the  world  as  worldlings  do. 
But  I  affirm  the  contrary — that  no  man  can  or  does  enjoy  so  much  of 
this  world  as  that  man  who  is  aiming  to  prepare  himself  for  the  king- 
dom of  God's  gloiy.  The  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  is  not  ascetic,  nor 
sour,  nor  gloomy,  nor  circumscribing.  It  is  full  of  sweetness  in  the 
present,  and  in  promise  ;  and  the  only  suifering  wliich  it  entails  is  such 
suffering  as  the  liar  experiences  in  learning  to  tell  the  truth.     Do  you 


46  TEE  SUFFICIENCY  OF  JESUS. 

not  think  it  is  wortli  while  for  a  dishonest  man  to  suffer  for  the  sake  of 
being  honest?  He  loses  a  great  many  chances,  to  be  sure.  I  can  un- 
derstand how  a  reformed  pickpocket,  passing  by  a  pompous  man,  and 
seeing  his  pompous  watch  on  his  pompous  belly,  might  say,  "  I  remem- 
ber the  time  when  I  would  have  had  that ;"  and  it  is  a  self-denial  to 
him.  But  do  not  you  think  that  a  pickpocket  on  the  way  to  virtue  is 
a  great  deal  happier  than  a  man  that  would  steal  ? 

These  are  low  illustrations  and  familiar  instances;  but  the  principle 
is  the  same  when  a  man  is  endeavoring  to  become  like  Jesus  Christ, 
and  to  gain  a  higher  conception  of  character  and  manhood,  and  finds 
obstacles  in  his  way,  such  as  pride  and  lust.  He  has,  we  will  suppose, 
a  battle  with  pride  and  lust.  And  there  is  the  only  place  where  his 
suffering  comes  in.  He  is  attempting  to  live  in  a  community  that 
would  laugh  down  sobriety.  He  has  to  stand  up  against  the  commu- 
nity and  say,  "I  will  not  drink  though  every  man  that  I  meet  drinks. 
I  will  not  gamble  though  all  my  companions  gamble." 

Says  a  man  in  a  frontier  settlement  who  carries  his  father's  integ- 
rity with  him,  "  I  will  be  upright  and  virtuous."  And  he  keeps  his 
resolution.  And  all  his  neighbors  deride  him.  And  he  has  to  take  up 
his  cross.  But  do  you  not  think  that  his  suffering  is  overbalanced  by 
the  joy  which  comes  from  his  consciousness  that  he  lives  in  superior 
manhood,  and  is  nobler  than  any  one  of  them?  Religion  does  lay  on 
men  some  degree  of  suffering ;  but  it  is  the  suffering  of  emancipation. 

See  how  a  man  will  work  to  get  out  of  prison.  I  remember  some 
stories  that  I  used  to  read,  of  how  a  prisoner  turned  a  knife  into  a  uni- 
versal tool ;  how  he  scraped  the  mortar,  and  took  out  a  floor  stone,  and 
little  by  little,  day  and  night,  removed  the  dirt,  till  finally  he  had  exca- 
vated a  little  chamber ;  how  he  carried  the  dirt  and  hid  it  in  his  bed ; 
how,  with  curious  device,  he  went  down  and  down  until  he  struck  under 
the  foundation  of  the  prison  sill ;  how  then  he  came  to  the  light,  and 
took  observation  as  to  where  he  was  coming  out ;  how  he  found  that 
he  was  still  inside  of  the  high  fence ;  and  how  he  notched  the  post  so 
that  he  could  climb  to  the  top ;  and  how  he  tore  his  blankets  and  let 
himself  down  on  the  other  side,  and  went  free.  Thief  though  he  was, 
liberty  was  sweet  to  him.  And  what  suffering  he  endured;  how  often 
he  gashed  his  hands,  that  he  might  gain  it !  He  said  to  himself, 
"  Only  let  me  get  out  and  have  my  freedom,  and  I  am  willing  to  risk 
my  life." 

Now,  let  a  man  feel  that  he  is  a  prisoner  to  lust,  to  appetite,  to 
dominant  passion,  and  he  says,  "  I  will  be  free  from  this,"  and  com- 
mences working  to  get  rid  of  his  chains,  and  burrows,  if  need  be,  ex- 
cavates, to  get  out  of  doors,  and  scales  the  fence,  iu  order  that  he  may 


TEE  SJIFFIGIENCT  OF  JESUS.  47 

gain  his  freedom  in  a  larger  and  nobler  sense  than  the  criminal  ever 
knows  it.     But  the  impulse  is  the  same. 

What  would  you  say  of  such  a  man,  if  he  got  out  of  prison?  Would 
you  say  that  he  paid  too  high  a  price  for  his  freedom  ?  Or  would  you 
say  that  it  was  worth  all  it  cost  him,  though  it  required  some  pain- 
bearing  and  life-risking  to  get  it  ? 

Religion  is  got  by  men  who  are  a  great  Avay  from  it,  and  they  have 
to  take  steps  to  come  to  it.  We  employ  tears,  and  sometimes  cutting 
off  the  right  hand  and  plucking  out  the  right  eye ;  but  when  once  a 
man  has  come  into  the  spirit  of  Christ  Jesus,  he  sees  religion  for  the 
first  time  in  a  new  light ;  and  he  says  of  it,  "  That  is  not  sour  nor 
gloomy.  It  is  triumphant,  exultant,  victorious  peace  in  this  life.  It 
gives  me  a  brighter  sun.  It  gives  me  a  nobler  night.  It  gives  me  more 
beauty  in  all  the  seasons.  It  gives  me  my  Father's  world,  and  no  longer 
a  smitten  world.  It  gives  me  things  here,  and  more  yet  in  the  world 
to  come.  And  no  man  knows  how  to  enjoy  the  day  or  the  night,  the 
year  or  the  seasons,  no  man  knows  how  to  enjoy  secular  blessings,  so 
well  as  he  who  has  victoriously  trusted  himself  in  the  hands  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

If,  then,  you  have  no  need  of  looking  unto  Jesus,  it  is  because  you 
are  without  aspiration ;  it  is  because  you  are  degraded ;  it  is  because 
you  do  not  understand  either  your  present  condition  or  the  dangers 
which  fall  upon  you  in  consequence  of  it ;  it  is  because  you  have  not  a 
touch  or  taste  of  the  divine  nature  in  your  souls.  He  who  has  no  oc. 
casion  to  look  unto  Jesus  is  degraded  and  vulgar — for  vulgarity  does 
not  mean  poor  clothes.  Vulgarity  means  a  poor  soul.  A  mean  soul 
in  broadcloth  is  vulgar.  A  mean  man  who  has  a  crown  on  is  vulgar ; 
and  a  pauper  with  a  king's  sonl  in  him  is  royal.  He  who  can  live  in 
this  life  and  say,  "  Husks  are  good  enough  for  me,  and  the  pigs  that  I 
associate  with,  and  that  are  my  companions,  are  good  enough  for  me ; 
I  have  no  need  of  looking  unto  Jesus  " — woe  be  to  that  man !  Woe 
be  to  him  whose  heart  does  not  ring  out  every  day,  in  every  time  of 
need,  "Look  unto  Jesus — look  unto  Jesus."  Woe  be  to  the  man  who 
has  no  time  of  conscious  need. 

2.  Men,  in*  their  life-struggles,  are  to  look  to  Christ  rather  than  to 
tm*n  then-  eyes  upon  themselves — which  ig  the  tendency  of  men.  We 
are  apt  to  think  very  little  of  ourselves,  until  we  begin  to  attempt  to 
break  away  from  bad  habits  and  evil  courses ;  but  then  we  shoot  into  the 
opposite  morbid  extreme,  and  think  of  almost  nothing  else.  It  is  very 
ti'ue  that  one  must  examine  himself,  and  know  something  of  himself; 
but  it  does  not  follow,  because  we  must  have  a  knowledge  of  our  own 
sinful  condition,  and  so  must  think  about  ourselves,  that  the  more  we 
do  it  the  better  we  are  off    It  is  wise  that  a  man  should  know  himself 


48  THE  8UFFICIENCT  OF  JESUS. 

to  be  so  sick  as  to  need  to  see  his  physician ;  but  the  physician  says, 
"Think  about  your  sickness  as  little  as  you  can."  He  draws  him  off 
from  his  symptoms  as  much  as  possible.  And  when  a  man  is  roused 
to  a  sense  of  sin,  and  the  consequent  danger  of  sin,  it  is  not  wise  for 
him  to  look  at  himself  too  much.  It  is  not  wise  for  you  to  turn  your 
eyes  inward  too  much  upon  that  gulf  of  the  heart  which  every  one  of 
you  has  in  him.  We  are  not  to  swing  round  as  in  an  eddy  or  whirl- 
pool in  a  dark  gorge.  We  are  to  look  unto  Jesus,  rather.  Every  man 
whose  pride  is  wounded ;  every  man  whose  vanity  is  wounded ;  every 
man  who  has  been  overthrown  by  lusts ;  every  man  whose  appetites 
have  carried  him  away  captive  ;  every  man  who. has  violated  the  law 
of  the  land  and  overstepped  the  bounds  of  divine  law ;  every  man 
who  has  gone  counter  to  the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience,  and  dis- 
obeyed the  tribunal  of  his  best  thoughts ;  every  man  who  convicts 
himself  of  wickedness,  is  not  to  sit  and  read  over  and  .over  and  over 
again  the  sentence  of  the  condemnation  that  is  pronounced  against 
him.  God  does  not  think  this  needful.  His  command  is,  IjOo/c  unto 
tTesus,  the  author  and  finisher  of  your  faith. 

It  is  this  very  moral  sensibility  that  he  has  begun  ;  and  out  of  this 
very  moral  sensibility  he  Avill  work  cure  to  the  world.  And  the  first 
step  for  every  wholesome  nature,  when  conscious  of  having  done 
wrong,  is  not  so  much  to  attempt  to  repair  the  wrong,  is  certainly  not 
to  go  back  and  chew  the  bitter  cud  of  memory,  ruminating  on  trans- 
gression, but  to  look  unto  Jesus,  and  be  forgiven;  and  then,  "forget- 
ting those  things  which  are  behind,  and  reaching  forth  unto  those  things 
which  are  before,  to  press  toward  the  mark  for  the  prize  of  the  high 
calling  of  God."  That  is  the  command.  And  it  is  sensible.  It  ad- 
dresses itself  to  the  moral  consciousness  of  eveiy  man,  and  to  every 
man's  sense  of  things  fit  and  right. 

And  yet,  there  are  many  persons  who  set  their  life  up  before  them, 
and  look  it  over,  and  review  it  again  and  again.  Sometimes  people  keep 
journals ;  and  when  a  man  keeps  a  journal  of  his  religious  experience 
he  never  will  lack  a  fool's  looking-glass';  and  he  will  see  himself  in  it 
every  time,  too.  If  there  is  one  place  where  the  devil  is  surer  to  get  a 
man  than  anywhere  else,  it  is  when  he  is  writing  his  journal.  And  yet 
many  think  they  grow  in  grace  by  an  anatomical  process  of  analyzing 
their  motives.  They  think  about  their  motives,  and  they  want  to  dis- 
criminate as  to  what  they  shall  piit  down ;  and,  generally  speaking,  a 
man  lies  every  time  he  dips  his  pen  into  the  ink.  For  although  a  jour- 
nal has,  in  pompous  letters,  on  the  outside,  "  To  be  read  by  no  one  but 
me,  and  in  case  of  my  death,  I  enjoin  my  affectionate  friends  to  burn 
this  manuscript,"  he  knows  that  these  affectionate  friends  will  read  it, 
for  the  same  reason  that  when  you  see  on  a  door,  "No  Admittance," 


THE  SUFFICIENCY  OF  JESU8.  49 

you  are  all  the  more  anxious  to  go  in,  because  you  tliink  there  is  some- 
tliing  there  worth  seeing.  And  when  a  man  says,  "  I  have  a  journal 
that  has  something  in' it  which  I  do  not  want  anybody  in  creation  to 
read,"  everybody  in  creation  wants  to  read  it,  and  all  creation  would 
not  stop  you  from  reading  it.  And  when  it  is  read,  it  is  exaggerated. 
It  is  filled  with  deceptive  statements.  A  man  does  not  choose  to  gib- 
bet himself  on  every  page  of  his  journal,  and  tell  how  wicked  a  man 
he  is.  A  man  may  tell  how  wicked  he  is,  but  not  how  mean  he  is. 
And,-  after  all,  the  meanness  is  the  worst  part  of  wickedness.  But  that 
is  the  thing  which  does  not  go  down  in  a  journal.  Yet  there  are  per- 
sons who  draw  out  the  long  black  lines  of  record,  as  if  it  were  of  any 
use  to  them,  or  to  anything  in  heaven  above  or  on  the  earth  beneath. 
A  journal  of  a  man's  morbid  economy  might  better  not  be  kept.  You 
have  enough  to  do  with  that  economy  anyhow.  It  is  sufficient  that 
you  have  expeviences  growing  out  of  it  from  hour  to  hour  and  from 
day  to  day.  Cast  behind  you  these  things.  The  sins  that  you  have 
committed  ai-q  evil.  Do  not  keep  them.  Throw  them  into  the  cb'aught. 
Let  them  sink  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 

There  are  men  who  have  committed  great  sins,  and  who  are  like  the 
knight  that  used  to  wear  sackcloth  in  order  that  the  scratching  mio-ht 
remind  him  of  having,  perhaps,  murdered  his  royal  master,  and 
who  never  wanted  to  forget  that  he  was  a  murderer.  But  what 
is  the  use  of  remembering  one's  crimes?  Some  set  apart  days  to 
remind  them  of  the  sins  of  the  olden  time.  They  want  to  keep  them 
in  memory.  But  Avliat  is  the  use  of  keeping  one's  sins  in  memory  ? 
You  are  not  the  children  of  night,  that  you  should  set  up  a  mon- 
ument of  darkness  of  this  kind.  It  is  not  worth  a  man's  while,  after 
he  has  once  escaped,  to  ponder  the  things  of  the  olden  time.  It  is  not 
in  accordance  with  New  Testament  truth,  or  God's  truth,  or  Christ's 
truth.  Yo\-gQ%,  forget,  forget  !  God  promises  that  he  will  do  it ;  and 
he  commands  you  to  do  it.  "  I  will  never  make  mention  again  of  your 
transgi-essions,"  he  says  to  men.  He  declares  that  then-  sins  shall  be 
cast  as  into  the  depths  of  the  sea.  And  why  should  a  man  trouble 
and  vex  himself  about  his  past  sins.  Do  you  suppose  you  are  any  bet- 
ter for  remembering  that  which  crushes  you  and  fills  you  with  pain  1 
Pain  is  like  emery.  If  it  scours  anything  that  wants  to  be  scoured,  it  is 
good.  Otherwise  it  is  not  good.  He  who  seeks  mere  pain  is  an  idola- 
ter. While  the  strife  and  conflict  of  sin  is  on  you,  then  look  at  it  and 
fight  it ;  but  when  it  is  past,  then  throw  it  away,  and  forget  it.  Never 
look  long  at  yourself,  or  at  the  old  burnt-out  craters  in  life.  Never 
linger  long  in  the  precincts  where  you  have  sufiered  a  great  deal.  You 
are  children  of  light.  Look  unto  Jesus.  Look  unto  him,  as  he  sitteth 
above,  in  the  midst  of  the  myriads  of  those  who  have  been  just  like 


50  TEE  SUFFICIENCY  OF  JESUS. 

vou ;  of  those  who  have  wept  over  ten  thousand  transgressions ;  of 
those  that  overcame  then*  sins  at  last,  and  are  saved  with  an  everlast- 
ing salvation.  In  their  midst,  crowned  with  joy,  floral  as  the  summer, 
Christ  sits.  And  every  sinner  who  mourns  over  his  sins,  and  would 
triumph  over  them,  is  commanded  to  look  to  him.  Do  not  look  to 
yourselves,  nor  to  your  sins,  but  to  Jfesus. 

3.  Chi'ist  is  to  be  sought,  not  after  we  have  overcome  our  sins ; 
not  after  we  have  gained  a  victory  over  our  transgi-essions.  In  the  old 
lists,  or  in  the  Schiitzen  games  of  the  knights,  the  queen  was  selected, 
and  she  sat  in  the  centre  on  the  upraised  seat ;  and  after  the  knights 
had  made  proof  of  their  skill  and  prowess,  and  their  adversaries  were 
cast  down,  then  the  one  that  had  come  out  conqueror,  soiled  anc 
weary,  and  with  his  armor  dashed  and  dented,  came  forward,  and 
was  crowned  by  the  queen.  But  he  had  to  go  through  the  conflict  first. 
A  great  many  think  that  Christ  sits  with  a  coronet  in  his  hand,  to 
crown  those  who  are  victorious,  after  they  shall  have  fought  their  own 
battles.  And  so  He  does,  in  one  sense.  We  are  to  be  final  victors, 
and  then  are  to  be  finally  crowned  in  heaven.  But  there  is  a  sense  in 
which  this  is  false.  That  is  to  say,  if  you  suppose  that  the  condition 
on  which  you  are  to  look  to  Jesus  for  succor  is  that  you  shall  over- 
come your  pride ;  if  you  say,  "  I  have  fallen  into  habits  of  self-indul- 
gence, I  want  to  be  free,  and  I  would  go  to  God  and  promise  Him  that 
I  will  reform,  only  I  have  been  a  thousand  times,  and  it  has  never 
availed,  and  I  shall  fail  again,  and  I  dare  not  go  any  more  until  I 
have  some  evidence  in  myself  that  I  shall  be  able  to  stand  in  my  own 
resolution" — then  you  take  a  wrong  view  of  this  matter.  People  say, 
"  I  would  go  to  God  if  I  felt  that  I  could  promise  anything,  and  that 
I  could  keep  my  promise." 

That  is  not  it.  You  ai-e  a  helpless  captive  ;  you  are  under  a  tor- 
menting master  ;  and  Jesus  is  your  deliverer.  And  shall  not  the  cap- 
tive cry  out  to  his  deliverer  until  he  has  broken  his  own  chains  ?  Are 
you  not  sinning  every  day?  Is  not  sin  your  master?  And  while  you 
are  sinning  are  you  not  an  unfortunate  soul,  carried  away  captive  ? 
And  is  it  not  declared  that  Jesus  came  to  break  shackles,  to  open 
prison  doors,  to  give  sight  to  the  blind,  and  to  give  hearing  to  the 
deaf?  He  comes  to  rescue  men.  And  the  time  when  a  man  is  to 
look  to  Jesus  most  confidingly  is  when  he  is  in  his  sins,  and  when  he 
knows  that  he  will  sin  again. 

Your  cup  betrayed  you  to-day,  and  yoin-  cup  will  betray  you  to- 
morrow. You  have  fallen  into  self-indulgent  pleasures  to-day,  and  you 
know  that  you  will  fall  into  them  to-morrow.  You  have  tried  for 
months,  and  perhaps  years,  to  get  rid  of  your  sins,  and  you  cannot  get 
rid  of  all  of  them.     You  can  give  up  one  thing  and  another  that  is 


THE  SUFFICIENCY  OF  JESUS.  51 

wrong,  but  you  cannot  give  up  all  wrong  things.  You  cannot  help 
longing  to  be  a  better  man,  and  you  cannot  prevent  these  evils  which 
spring  from  the  flesh.  You  are  waiting,  and  hoping  that  the  time  will 
come  when  you  can  present  yourself  as  a  fit  person  to  join  the  Church, 
and  when  you  can  present  yourself  at  the  table  of  the  Lord,  saying, 
"I  have  conquered."  Oh!  it  will  be  a  joyful  day  when  you  can  say 
that ;  but  you  need  to  go  to  Christ  a  great  while  before  then.  You 
need  to  go  to  Him  to  get  pity  ;  to  get  succor ;  to  get  inspiration.  There 
is  no  time  when  Christ  is  so  needed  by  a  man's  soul  as  when  that  soul 
is  sinning  from  day-to-day.  That  is  the  time,  above  all  other  times, 
when  you  need  to  go  to  Him. 

I  used  to  work  out  my  sums  weaiily — when  I  worked  them  out  at 
all — at  my  seat,  on  my  slate  ;  and  when  I  had  done  them,  I  went  to  my 
master  to  show  them  to  him  with  some  pleasure  ;  but  I  did  not  need 
to  show  them  to  him,  so  far  as  any  benefit  to  me  was  concerned.  I 
did  not  need  to  be  helped,  after  I  had  worked  out  my  sums  myself 
But  when  I  had  got  stuck — which  was  ninety-nine  times  in  a  hundred 
— I  then  went  to  him,  in  order  to  have  him  show  me  how  to  work 
them  out.  And  then  it  was  that  the  master  did  me  good.  Before,  I 
felt  good  when  I  got  out  the  sum — rare  triumph  !  but  ordinarily  I 
went  to  him  that  he  might  teach  me.     It  was  help  that  I  needed. 

It  is  a  good  thing  for  a  man  whose  physician  last  saw  him  with  all 
the  airs  of  an  invalid,  to  surprise  his  physician  some  bright  morning, 
by  calling  upon  him,  and  saying,  "  Behold  a  man  risen  from  the  dead. 
Doctor !"  That  is  a  very  pleasant  thing  ;  but  ah  !  it  is  not  then  only 
that  a  man  should  see  his  doctor.  When  he  lies  full  of  suffering,  and 
is  growing  worse  and  worse,  is  the  time  that  he  should  send  for  his 
doctor.  A  man  should  send  for  his  physician,  not  when  he  has  got 
well,  but  while  he  is  sick,  that  he  may  get  well. 

We  need  to  go  to  Jesus  as  victors,  as  we  shall,  one  day,  if  we  are 
faithful ;  but  ah !  He  will  not  be  so  necessary  to  me  when  I  shall  have 
passed  through  death,  as  He  is  to-day,  and  to-morrow,  and  every  day, 
until  I  die.  It  is  now  that  I  need  Him.  My  times  of  need  are  in  my 
conflicts  here.  It  is  in  this  mortal  thrall,  it  is  in  the  breaking  of  the 
bands  which  are  tougher  than  my  strength,  it  is  in  the  tempations  that 
lurk  about  me  on  every  side,  that  I  need  help.  It  is  in  the  midst  of 
my  strifes  and  struggles  that  I  need  a  saviour.  And  it  is  in  your  times 
of  need  that  you  should  go  to  Christ :  but  not  when  you  are  conscious 
that  you  are  getting  better,  but  when  you  know  that  you  are  getting 
no  better,  but  worse.  Jesus  is  your  soul's  Physician,  and  Teacher,  and 
succoring  Friend.  And  He  has  said,  "  I  will  never  leave  thee  nor  for- 
sake thee."  And  if  there  is  any  one  who  is  conscious  of  being  in  moral 
degradation,  the  command  to  him  is,  Ztook  unto  Jesxcs.     He  is  the 


52  THE  SUFFICIENCY  OF  JESUS. 

All-Helpfal,  and  he  will  succor  you,  and  will  teach  you  how  to  gain  a 
victory. 

We  are  not  to  grieve  Christ  by  despondency  and  despair  in  over- 
\  measure,  arising  out  of  our  evil  courses.  Many  persons  fall  into  the 
notion  that  in  some  sense  they  make  atonement  of  sin,  if  afterwards 
they  comj^el  themselves  to  suffer  for  it.  But  we  are  not  to  be  selfish. 
We  are  to  remember  that,  being  delivered  from  our  transgressu'us, 
we  are  not  our  own,  but  another's — that  we  belong  to  Christ. 

When  Christ  was  on  earth,  men  were  brought  to  him  to  be  healed. 
You  will  observe  how  He  healed  them.  He  said  to  them,  "  Take  up 
thy  bed  and  walk  !"  Suppose  a  man  had  taken  up  his  bed,  and  also 
his  crutches,  and  gone  hobbling  off,  what  would  the  multitude  have 
thought  ?  And  if  they  had  stopped  him,  and  questioned  him,  and  he 
had  said  that  he  was  healed,  would  they  not  have  said  to  him,  "Why 
do  you  not  stand  up  straight  then  ?  Why  do  you  hobble  ?  Nobody 
will  believe  that  you  are  healed.  That  is  not  the  Avay  to  reflect  credit 
on  the  Master  and  His  power.  Throw  away  your  crutches,  and  take 
your  pallet  on  your  shoulders  and  walk  so  that  everybody  will  see 
that  you  are  well  ?" 

When  a  man  has  been  drinking  forty  years,  it  is  never  necessary 
for  him  to  say,  "I  have  been  a  drunkard."  Everybody  will  know  it; 
and  there  will  be  enough  to  throw  it  up  to  him  and  keep  him  in  mem- 
ory of  it.  You  do  not  need  ever  to  say,  "  I  have  been  a  gambler," — 
for  I  believe  that  Christ  is  able  to  save  even  a  gambler.  You  may 
have  been  an  impure  person ;  you  may  have  wallowed  in  wickedness  ; 
and  when  you  have  risen  out  of  your  degradation,  there  will  be  a 
strong  temptation  for  you  to  run  along  on  the  ground  and  make  your- 
self humble  by  degrading  yourself  But  remember  that  you  are 
healed  by  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  you  have  a  testimony  to 
give  to  him,  which  all  the  world  may  see  ;  viz.,  that,  whereas  you 
were  blind,  now  you  see.  And  it  is  the  healing  that  is  to  be  upper- 
most in  your  testimony.  It  is  the  grace  of  God  which  has  restored 
you  that  is  to  be  on  your  lip.  "  I  once  was  lost,  but  now  am  found," 
is  to  be  your  declaration.  Your  song  should  be  one  of  glory  and  joy, 
and  not  one  of  remorse.  Look  forward.  Do  not  be  forever  turmoil- 
ing  your  peace  by  looking  backward.  Bear  a  testimony  that  shall  be 
worthy  of  Him  who  has  loved  you,  and  redeemed  you,  and  is  to  make 
you  a  king  and  priest  unto  God. 

4.  There  is  to  be  encouragement  to  all  those  who  undertake  reform- 
ation from  sins  that  seem  to  them  inexpugnable.  No  man  is  so 
great  a  sinner  that  he  may  not  repent  and  turn  to  God.  No  man  is  so 
great  a  sinner  that,  if  he  try  to  help  himself,  God  will  not  help  him, 
and  give  him  a  victory.     There  is  no  need  that  any  man  should  con- 


TEE  SUFFICIENCY  OF  JESUS.  53 

tinue  in  any  course  of  sin.  There  is  no  syinpatliy  wanting;  there  is 
no  hindrance  that  may  not  be  overcome ;  there  is  no  power  tliat  is 
equal  to  that  which  is  exerted  in  his  behalf.  For  Jesus  reigns,  and 
administers  nature,  and  the  whole  realm  of  grace  in  this  world,  every- 
thing, that  he  may  cleanse  the  impure,  forgive  transgression,  and  build 
up,  out  of  the  youth,  and  out  of  the  inexperience  of  our  earthly  life,  a 
manhood  of  noble  simplicity  and  beauty  ;  and  that  he  may  at  last  pre- 
sent us  before  the  throne  of  God  and  his  Father,  with  joy  forever- 
more. 

Now,  my  dear  Christian  friends,  as  I  have  always  sought  in  my 
ministry  among  you  to  make  Christ  the  one,  the  chief  among  ten 
thoxxsand ;  so  when,  after  this  little  interval  in  my  preaching,  I  begin,  as 
it  were,  again,  the  new  preacher's  year,  my  first  message  to  you  is  that 
of  the  sufficiency  of  Jesus,  who  is  God  manifest  in  the  flesh — his  suffi- 
ciency for  all  your  want ;  for  your  sin ;  for  your  sorrow ;  lor  your 
mistakes ;  for  your  inexperience ;  for  your  despondency ;  for  your 
hopelessness  ;  for  your  heartlessness  ;  for  everything  to  which  flesh  is 
heir.     Look  unto  Jesus. 

Oh,  blessed  Eenefactor !  if  it  be  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  re- 
ceive, how  great  is  the  joy  of  heaven !  What  streams  of  mercy  are 
issuing  from  the  heart  of  God  !  What  boundless  benefaction,  inex- 
haustible, and  forever  growing  richer  and  deeper,  is  treasured  up  for 
us !  And  if  with  every  upsjmnging  mercy  there  is  upspringing  joy 
in  the  heart  of  God,  God  is  the  happiest  being  in  the  universe,  be- 
cause he  is  the  most  beneficent. 

Into  his  service  we  come.  And  now,  to-day,  we  shall  take  hold 
again  of  this  life  ;  and  as  we  shall  join  invisible  hands,  and  join  hearts, 
as  we  draw  near  to  the  table  of  our  crucified  Redeemer  (not  crucified, 
blessed  be  God — the  only  crucified  Saviour  left  is  the  symbolic ;  but 
the  ever-risen  Prince,  the  Glory  and  the  Power  of  heaven,  who  lives 
forever  in  endless  joy) ;  as  we  shall  gather  around  the  historic  memo- 
rial, to  celebrate  the  love  of  Christ,  let  every  one  of  us  look  at  his  own 
experience,  and  no  one  of  us  drop  a  tear,  or  feel  a  pang  of  sorrow. 
He  has  sufiered  for  us.  Look  up,  long,  gaze,  and  rejoice  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ. 

If  there  be  any  souls  here,  whether  they  belong  to  the  outward 
Church  of  Christ  or  not,  who  belong,  conscious  of  this  faith  and 
longing,  to  the  living  Jesus,  I  invite  them  to  this  feast  of  the  Lord. 
For,  although  the  Church,  for  form's  sake,  and  propriety's  sake,  ad- 
ministers the  Lord's  Supper,  the  Church  does  not  own  it,  any  more 
than  it  owns  the  Bible.  The  Lord's  Supper  belongs  to  every  individ- 
ual who  cleaves  to  the  Saviour.  And  I  make  the  invitation  of  this 
church,  with  the  consent  of  the  brotherhood,  to  all  who  have  a  con- 


54  TEE  8UFFICIENGT  OF  JESUS. 

scions  reliance  upon  the  Lord  Jesus.  You  are  competent  to  judge, 
whether,  sinful  as  you  are,  and  unworthy  as  you  are,  you  look  to 
Jesus  for  all  your  hope  of  salvation ;  and  all  who  do,  I  invite  to  sit 
with  us  and  partake  of  these  emblems  of  mercy  and  love. 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

We  thank  thee,  our  Father,  for  the  day  in  which  we  were  taught  to  know 
thee.  We  thank  thee  for  those  continuous  disclosures  which  have  been  made 
from  time  to  time,  for  the  Word,  and  for  that  providence  and  that  inward 
experience  wrought  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  through  which  the  heart  itself  be- 
comes limiinous,  and  thy  providences  are  interpreted.  For  in  thee  we  live 
and  move  and  have  our  being.  And  when  we  are  not  conscious  of  thee,  we 
have  no  life  ;  we  are  orphans;  we  wander,  and  are  aliens  for  the  common- 
wealth of  Israel.  But  what  time  thou  dost  bring  us  back  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  thy  life,  of  thy  love,  of  all  the  blessed  things  which  thou  hast  prepar- 
ed for  us,  we  live  indeed.  No  longer  in  disturbanceof  our  lower  passions,  no 
longer  in  the  midst  of  dins,  and  jars,  and  conflicts  with  outward  things  and  cir- 
cumstances, we  are  brought  into  the  sanctuary  of  peace.  Our  inward  thoughts 
are  enlightened  by  thy  Spirit.  We  are  lifted  above  ourselves,  and  we  are 
what  we  are  in  God.  We  are  made  pure  by  thought  of  purity  for  us.  Thou 
dost  clothe  us  as  we  shall  be,  even  now  as  we  are.  Thou  dost  look  at  us 
and  see  what  that  to  which  we  are  coming  by  thy  grace  will  do  as  in  tliy 
sight  now.  As  we  look  upon  our  children,  and  imagine  that  to  which  they 
are  coming,  but  with  an  erring  gaze,  and  with  many  mistakes,  and  yet  witJr 
much  comfort,  and  are  patient  with  their  weakness  till  they  sliall  reach 
their  strength,  and  with  their  faults  till  they  shall  have  learned  their  virtues 
better,  so  more  gloriously,  in  a  greater  amplitude  of  love,  with  iufiuite  pity 
and  infinite  tenderness,  and  forbearance,  and  gentleness,  thou  dost  look,  not 
at  what  we  are,  so  much  as  at  that  to  which  we  shall  come  through  our 
faults,  through  our  frequent  downfalls  and  sins,  through  our  weakness.  All 
the  glory  of  our  future  estate  is  before  thee.  For,  is  not  our  name  in  thy 
book  ?  Is  not  our  place  waiting  for  us  ?  Are  there  not  for  us  palms  ?  Are 
we  not  yet,  as  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect,  to  stand  in  thy  presence 
above  ?  Are  we  not  to  hold  on  a  course  of  joy  forevermore  ?  And  is  it  not 
all  open  before  thee  ?  Naked  and  open  are  we  before  Him  with  whom  we 
have  to  do.  And  thou  dost  look  royally  upoiS  us,  and  wait  till  we  emerge, 
till  we  grow,  and  outgrow  our  manifold  imperfections  and  sins.  And  from 
day  to  day,  with  infiaite  tenderness,  thou  dost  forgive  the  sins  of  the  day. 
From  day  to  day  with  sorrow  thou  dost  help  us  to  sorrow,  and  with  cleans- 
ing repentance  thou  dost  teach  us  to  forsake  our  sins.  And  thou  art  still 
working  in  us.  Thou  art  healing  us.  And  when  thou  hast  healed  us,  we  be- 
come more  and  more  precious  to  thee.  For  we  know,  in  our  lesser  sphere,  that 
those  for  whom  we  do  the  most  become  most  to  us.  We  see  how  parents 
cling  to  the  most  needy  of  their  children,  to  succor  them,  and  to  bring  them 
through  their  infirmities,  and  love  them  with  a  strength  that  is  in  propor- 
tion to  the  strength  which  they  have  given  them.  And  in  that  w^e  desire 
to  interpret  thee,  and  to  rejoice  in  the  experience  which  thus  is  a  symbol  of 
God's  government  to  us.  And  oh  !  if  thou  dost  love  us  in  proportion  to 
our  faults,  how  deep  is  thy  sympathy  !  and  how  strong  is  thy  yearning  I  Thou 
that  wilt  not  break  the  bruised  reed,  nor  quench  the  smoking  flax  till  thou 
dost  bring  forth  judgment  unto  victory,  how  great  is  the  sum  of  thy  mercy 
toward  us  for  whom  thou  hast  done  so  much,  who  still  need  so  much,  and 


THE  SUFFICIENCY  OF  JESUS.  55 

who  will  to  the  very  end  of  life  need  so  much.  For  there  is  not  a  day  be- 
fore us  that  is  not  to  have  its  dark  shadows.  We  have  net  yet  learned  to 
carry  our  pride  in  consonance  with  love,  "We  have  not  yet  learned  to  carry 
about  the  truth  in  its  purity.  We  have  not  yet  learned  to  overcome  vanity, 
and  an  undue  love  of  praise  from  men  rather  than  from  God.  We  have  not 
yet  learned  how  to  counterbalance  our  senses  by  our  spiritual  life.  We  for- 
get thee ;  we  forget  heaven ;  we  forget  our  errands  upon  earth ;  we  forget 
our  better  selves;  we  are  often  baptized  in  darkness,  and  seldom  in  hope, 
and  light,  and  joy.  All  that  is  in  us  yet  nascent.  All  that  thou  art  do- 
ing for  us,  thou  art  doing  for  those  who  are  yet  to  be.  In  life  we  are  as 
children  in  the  womb,  and  are  to  be  born  only  when  death  comes  and 
opens  to  let  us  forth  into  the  clearness  and  blessedness  of  our  life  in  heaven. 
Thou  art  carrying  us.  We  are  born,  and  we  are  to  be  born,  of  thee.  And 
we  rejoice  in  this  fullness  ;  iu  the  disclosure  of  thy  nursing  love,  of  thy  pa- 
tient waiting;  of  thy  all-formative  mercy.  We  rejoice  that  we  are  what  we 
are,  not  by  grace  in  ourselves,  and  not  by  our  own  power,  which  is  but  little, 
and  unexercised,  and  unwise,  and  unskilled,  but  by  the  mighty  power  of 
God,  And  our  hope  is  not  that  we  shall  overcome  our  adversaries,  but  that 
we  shall  have  the  generous  love  and  companionship  of  Christ  Jesus,  wlio 
will  not  suffer  any  to  perish,  but  will  bear  the  lambs  in  his  arms  ;  who  will 
go  out  after  the  sheep  that  wander  from  the  path  in  the  wilderness,  and 
briag  them  back  with  infinite  tenderness  and  gentleness,  and  rejoice  over 
one  that  wanders  more  than  over  all  the  flock  that  has  kept  its  estate.  How 
wonderful  is  the  insight  which  we  get  of  thy  mercy  !  How  wonderful  is  the 
realm  and  glory  of  God's  heart,  where  no  contending,  no  rage  and  no  pas- 
sion are;  where  medicating  mercy  is ;  where  is  upbuilding  love;  where  infi- 
nite patience  and  gentleness  are ;  where  the  growths  of  all  creation,  coming 
up  through  labor  pain,  and  groaning  and  travailing  until  now,  are  nourished 
and  supervised  until  thou  shalt  bring  forth  judgment  unto  victory. 

Lord,  our  God !  thou  art  such  an  one  as  we  need — a  refuge,  a  defense 
out  of  ourselves,  and  out  of  our  fearis,  which  are  of  the  Devil.  We  flee  away 
to  thee,  and  come  into  the  fulness  of  trust,  and  into  the  obedience  of  trust. 
We  desire  not  to  oflend  thee  again  by  untruthfulness,  having  oflended  thee 
by  sin ;  but  may  we  know  thy  loving  and  tender  mercy,  and  thy  forgiving 
love  and  gentleness ;  may  we  know  how  to  draw  thee  as  thou  art  draw- 
ing us. 

And  now  we  beseech  of  thee,  O  Lord  our  God,  that  thou  wilt  help  every 
one  that  is  seeking  to  live  higher  and  better  than  he  has  lived.  Help  those 
to  reform  who  only  mean  reformation  ;  and  yet  do  better  for  them  than  they 
ask  or  think.  Help  those  who  are  coming  out  of  evil  courses  into  newness 
of  life.  Though  they  be  babes  in  Christ,  and  wander  often,  and  cry,  still  bear 
them  with  patience  and  with  care,  until  they  are  able  to  be  men  in  Christ 
Jesus. 

Be  with  all  who  hunger  and  thkst  after  righteousness,  and  long  for 
higher  attainments  in  the  divine  life.  We  pray  that  they  may  have  that 
perfect  peace  which  passeth  all  understanding. 

And  now,  as  we  are  walking  in  the  infirmities  and  sins  of  this  life,  so 
may  we  walk  in  the  common  hope  and  certainty  that,  after  life  has  dealt 
with  us,  and  disciplined  us,  and  purified  us,  we  shall  meet  together  nobler 
in  companionship,  better  for  love,  purer  and  truer,  better  worthy  of  each 
other.  And  then  we  shall  wonder  that  we  found  it  so  hard  to  bear  with 
each  other  on  earth.  Then  we  shall  wonder  that  we  did  so  little  good,  that 
we  had  so  much  of  reproach,  and  that  we  were  so  little  helpful  to  each 
other.  Then,  in  the  glory  of  that  ecstatic  vision,  how  will  they  stand  royal 
to  our  eye  who  are  so  full  of  faults,  and  against  whom  we  gnash  with  accu- 
sation and  criticism.  And  grant  that  the  coming  hope,  the  coming  joy,  the 
certainty  of  redemption,  the  beauty  of  the  love  that  is  to  be  in  heaven,  may 
Bhiue  back  through  faith  upon  us,  and  that  we  may  see  these  things  even 


56  TUE  SUFFICIENCY  OF  JESUS. 

now  though  but  in  shadow,  and  toward  those  that  are  in  delusion  and 
folly,  be  more  gentle,  more  patient,  more  helpful. 

Bless  all  the  households  that  belong  to  this  congregation.  Bless  parents 
and  children.  We  pray  that  the  young  may  grow  up  able  to  discern  and  lo 
eschew  what  is  evil,  and  to  embrace  that  which  is  high-minded  and  noble, 
and  good. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  the  labor  of  the  Sabbat h- 
schoois  and  Bible-classes  -  all  that  are  teaching,  and  all  that  are  taught. 
Kcmember,  we  beseech  thee,  those  who  go  forth,  from  day  to  day,  and 
from  Sabbath  to  Sabbath,  to  find  the  wanderers,  and  who  in  the  streets,  and. 
in  prisons,  and  everywhere,  seek  to  make  known  Jesus  Christ.  And  we  pray 
that  their  labor  may  not  be  in  vain. 

And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  upon  all  the  churches 
of  this  city,  and  of  the  great  city  near  us,  and  throughout  all  this  land. 
And  may  this  day  be  a  day  of  mercy  everywhere.  And  may  those  that  are 
feebly  seeking  ia  waste  places,  and  under  circumstances  of  discouragement, 
to  do  good,  feel  the  inward  strength  of  God  moving  them  to  their  duties 
this  day. 

And  may  thy  kingdom  come  everywhere.  Look  upon  the  whole  earth, 
now  shaken  with  the  tread  of  thy  feet.  Going  forth  for  wrath,  and  for  a 
wi'ath  that  is  to  reveal  mercy,  when  thou  shalt  have  smitten,  and  burned, 
aad  rocked,  and  overthrown,  and  done  the  terrible  work  with  the  plow  of 
thy  justice,  then  open  the  upturned  furrows;  and  grant  that  the  seeds  of 
righteousness  and  peace  may  be  sown,  and  that  the  nations  of  the  earth  may 
learn  war  no  more,  but  that  all  lands  may  see  thy  salvation,  and  every  man 
sit  under  his  own  vine  and  fig  tree,  and  the  joy  of  God  be  the  possession  of 
the  whole  earth. 

And  to  thy  name  »hall  be  the  praise,  Father,  Son  and  Spirit,  evermore. 
Amen, 


IV. 

GoD's  Love  Specific  and  Personal 


INVOCATION. 

Grant  unto  us,  this  morning,  O  Lord  our  God,  as  the  better  rising  of  the 
sun,  the  light  of  thy  countenance,  that  our  life  may  be  illumed;  and  may 
it  be  such  light  and  warmth  shed  abroad  upon  us  as  shall  bring  forth  in  us 
all  sweet  and  pleasant  things.  May  we  know,  to-day,  the  joy  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  May  we  rise  up  out  of  the  power  of  oiu*  lower  life  and  nature  into 
the  blessedness  and  communion  of  that  life  of  the  Spirit  which  thou  grantest 
unto  thy  children.  Yes,  Father,  call  us  children,  and  give  us  to  hear  the 
word,  that  we  may  be  at  home  to-day,  and  be  with  the  Lord.  Bless  the  ser- 
vice of  the  sanctuary.  Make  it  easy  for  us  to  pray,  and  easy  for  us  to  find 
thee  in  prayer.  Bless  us  as  we  mingle  together  heart  and  voice  in  songs  of 
praise.  Bless  the  service  of  instruction  and  devotion,  in  every  form ;  and 
bewith  us  m  the  hours  of  this  day,  whether  here  or  at  home,  and  every 
where,  so  that  our  hearts  may  never  be  lonesome ;  so  that  we  may  feel  nour- 
ished with  the  might  of  God,  and  with  the  power  of  his  love ;  and  so  that  thy 
soul  may  take  some  joy  of  us.  Which  we  ask  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ, 
our  Redeemer.  Amen. 
i 


GOD'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  FERSOML 


And  tlie  life  which  I  now  live  in  the  flesh,  I  live  by  the  faith  of  the  Son 
of  God,  who  loved  me,  and  gave  himself  for  me. — Gal.  II.  20. 


It  is  not  the  intensity  of  this  experience  that  I  wish  to  point  out> 
but  its  peculiar  element  of  personalness.  The  life  that  the  apostle  lives 
in  the  flesh,  the  inmost  life,  the  secret  spring  of  it,  is  that  which  is  de- 
rived from  his  love  to  Christ — from  his  faith  of  the  Son  of  God.  And 
that  Son  of  God  presented  himself  to  his  imagination  and  to  his  thought 
as  what  ?  As  one  who  loved  the  great  lover  1  No,  not  that ;  but  as  one 
who  loved  me ;  who  gave  himself  for  me.  There  is  a  characteristic  ele- 
ment of  this  experience — the  recognition  of  the  divine  love,  and  the 
bringing  home  of  that  love  tq  one's  own  personal  experience.  The 
Gospel  teaching  is  that  God's  love  is  the  prime  and  grand  attribute  of 
his  nature.  This  is  the  foundation  of  government,  the  source  of  moral 
law,  the  philosophy  of  history,  the  one  golden  thread  on  which  all  events 
are  strung — although  often  it  is  hidden  by  the  things  strung  upon  it. 

But  this  view  suggests  God's  benevolence  to  our  minds,  rather  than 
God's  love.  It  is  a  golden  haze  of  good-will  that  we  look  into.  So, 
men  think,  the  summer  sun  shines  on  the  hills  universally,  and  nour- 
ishes infinite  flowers  and  fruits,  and  cares  for  nothing  of  all  its  brood. 
It  makes  them,  and  fondly  fingers  them  until  they  are  moulded,  and 
fills  them  with  sweet  incense  and  sweet  flavors,  and  then  leaves  them. 
For  the  sun  cares  not  that  the  apple  drops,  or  that  the  flower  withers. 
They  live,  and  they  perish,  and  the  sun  goes  on.  And  when  all  are 
<5ut  ofi",  and  it  rolls  in  winter,  it  seems  to  be  just  as  merry,  and  just  as 
bright,  and  just  as  joyous  a  sun  as  it  was  in  the  midst  of  summer. 

So  men  think  that  God's  beneficence  is  a  kind  of  sunlight,  flaming 
Avith  a  flashing  fire  abroad.  It  does  throw  down  a  certain  good  will 
upon  everybody,  and  upon  everything  indiflTerently,  without  regard  to 
character  or  position.  A  certain  sunshine  of  the  divine  nature  it  is. 
And  many  conceive  of  God's  love  as  being  so  universal  that  it  is 
hardly  personal.  It  is  atmospheric  to  their  thought — not  minute,  not 
specific. 

But  the  God  of  revelation  is  a  father.  Mankind  are  his  children, 
lie  knows  all  of  them,  and  is  personal  to  each,  and  is  specific  to  every 

Sunday  Morntsq,  Oct.  2,  1870.  Lesson  :  Isaiah.  XLIIL  Etima  (Plymouth  Colleotion) ; 
Nos.  130, 513,  381.  \    j  > 


68  GOD'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PERSONAL, 

individual  creature  of  the  vast  household,  innumerable  and  inconceiv- 
able by  us.  The  thought  of  God  points  to  each  one  ;  and  as  if  there 
was  but  a  single  creature  in  the  universe,  he  looks  on  that  one.  As  long 
ago  as  Isaiah,  God  had  declared, 

"  I  have  called  thee  by  thy  name," 
as  I  read  in  your  hearing  this  morning.     And  still  again,  if  possible 
with  more  minuteness,  in  the  forty-fifth  chapter,  he  says, 

"I  have  even  called  thee  by  thy  name.  I  have  surnamed  thee,  though 
thou  hast  not  known  me;  I  am  the  Lord,  and  there  is  none  else,  there  is  no 
God  beside  me.     I  girded  thee,  though"  thou  has  not  known  me." 

The  personality  and- the  disinterestedness  and  the  universality  of  the 
divine  love  are  wonderfully  set  forth  in  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures 
— particularly  in  the  later  disclosures  of  the  prophets. 

The  presentation  of  this  thought  stirs  up  a  great  many  doubts  in 
those  who  have  been  exercised  thereby.  Men  think  that  Paul  probably 
was  beloved,  that  Peter  was  beloved,  and  that  many  others  were  be- 
loved. Men  look  around,  and  think  that  their  mother  was  beloved,  and 
that  others,  with  superior  natures  and  symmetrical  parts,  and  full  of 
moral  excellences,  were  beloved.  They  can  well  conceive  how  those 
who  draw  upon  their  amiable  feelings,  might  likewise  excite  in  the  di- 
vine mind  personal  affection.  But  they  say,  "  When  men  love  single 
persons,  it  does  not  follow  that  they  love  all  persons.  And  God  loves 
men,  doubtless  ;  but  does  he  love  every  one  ?"  God  so  loved  the  world, 
is  the  comprehensive  answer  to  that  question.  God  loved  the  world, 
and  the  whole  world.  And  the  woi'd  world,  for  its  definition  and  bound- 
aries, runs  through  all  time,  and  among  all  races.  It  includes  in  it  all 
individuals,  from  age  to  age.    Everywhere  God  loved  the  n^hole  world. 

"  Yes,"  men  say,  "  but  God  loves  men  after  he  has  made  them  love- 
able."  But  the  apostle  says,  "  God  commendeth  his  love  toward  us,  in 
that  while  we  icere  yet  sinners  Christ  died  for  us'."  Love  which  death 
tested  but  could  not  measure,  was  shed  abroad  toward  each  man  and 
the  whole  world,  witliout  moi'al  conditions.  That  is  the  import  of  what 
the  apostle  says.  God's  disinterestedness  is  made  plain,  in  that  he  loves 
each  man,  not  on  condition  of  repentance,  but  whether  he  repents  or 
not.  He  loves  men,  not  because  there  is  that  in  them  which  has  a  ten- 
dency to  excite  complacency,  but  though  they  are  sinful.  He  loves  un- 
lovely men.  Yea,  men  that  we  could  not  love,  God  loves.  And  his 
love  is  not  generic.  It  is  not  a  part  of  the  governmental  benevolence. 
It  is  individualized  both  ways — in  the  heart  of  God,  and  in  the  heart  of 
the  recipients.  It  is  God's  nature  to  love  what  his  ce  looks  upon. 
Every  human  being,  whether  he  is  good,  or  whether  he  is  bad,  God  loves. 
I  do  not  say  that  it  makes  no  difference  to  God  whether  men  are  good, 
or  whether  they  are  bad,  but  I  do  say  that  the  great  crowning  fact  of 
divine  love  has  no  respect  of  character — that  it  precedes  character,  and 
is  not  founded  upon  it. 


QOD'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PERSONAL.  69 

To  bo  sure,  the  benefit  of  that  love  tc  us  depends  very  largely  upon 
our  faith,  and  upon  our  repentance  ;  but  the  existence  of  the  divine 
personal  love  does  not  depend  on  us  in  any  wise.  It  is — if  I  may  ap- 
ply to  God  language  which  belongs  to  men — the  constitutional  nature 
of  God.  It  is  the  tendency  of  his  attributes.  This  is  that  which  makes 
Jesus  Jehovah,  God,  and  all  others  liars.  It  is  this  power  of  universal 
and  yet  individualizing  love  which  has  in  it  creative  influence,  cleans- 
ing influence,  but  which  precedes  all  cleansing  and  all  creative  results. 

Love  is  the  test  of  divinity.  It  carries  with  it  a  great  many  other 
things.  It  carries  with  it  in  God  the  conception  of  j^urity,  and  of  up- 
rightness, aiiO^  of  integrity  of  disposition,  and  of  justice,  and  of  truth. 
It  carries  with  it,  also,  the  full  idea  of  instrumentality — both  penalty 
and  reward,  pleasure  and  pain.  And  back  of  all  these,  as  the  root- 
ground  out  of  which  they  spring,  as  the  source  from  which  they  come, 
as  the  animating  influence  which  runs  through  them  all,  is  love.  And 
that  love  is  personal  to  us.  It  is  divine,  infinite ;  and  yet  it  touches 
each  one  by  name  throughout  the  whole  realm. 

Men  have  familiarized  theniselves,  however,  with  those  elements 
of  the  divine  character  which  are  nearest  to  their  own  natures,  or  which 
are  represented  by  the  things  that  are  most  familiar  to  them  in  the 
material  world  around  them.  And  so  it  has  come  to  pass  that  force, 
universality,  knowledge,  seem  to  them  far  more  potent  attributes  in  the 
nature  of  God  than  love  does.  "We  think  that  God  is  omnipotent, 
omnicient,  omnipresent;  we  think  that  he  is  just  and  good;  we 
think  that  he  is  impartial  and  righteous ;  but  we  think  that  love  is 
something  that  comes  in  after  all  the  conditions  of  these  other  attri- 
butes have  been  satisfied.  When  men  shall  have  so  arranged  nature 
and  character  that  they  stand  before  God  at  such  an  angle  or  in  such 
a  light  that  the  love  of  purity  is  satisfied,  and  the  love  of  justice  is 
satisfied,  and  the  love  of  obedience  and  law  and  government  is  sat- 
isfied, then  whatever  remains  in  them,  whatever  virtue  is  left,  is  love. 
And  that  love  is  supposed  to  be  the  premium  of  perfected  obedience 
afterwards ;  whereas,  in  the  representations  of  the  Bible,  love  goes  first 
of  all,  and  is  the  reason  of  everything  in  the  divine  character  and  the 
divine  administration. 

You  know  how  forts  are  built.  There  are  outworks;  there  are 
lines  of  deep  ditches  to  keep  ofi"  the  enemy ;  there  are  ramparts  on  Avhieh 
swarms,  at  every  angle,  mighty  artilleiy,  that  crosses  and  recrosses  in 
every  direction.  A  fort  is  a  vast  mechanism  of  brute  force,  thrown  up 
to  protect  those  who  are  within,  and  to  destroy  those  who  assail  it 
from  without.  And  yet,  somewhere,  hid  in  the  center  of  this  vast  com- 
j)licated  fort,  there  is  a  house  where  the  commandant  lives.  And  there 
he  has  his  little  parlor,  and  his  family,  and  all  the  amenities  of  a  loving 
household. 


60  GOD'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PERSONAL, 

So  men  think  of  God's  moral  government.  They  have  an  idea  that 
it  is  a  thing  of  vast  proportions,  with  its  artillery,  and  huge  laws,  and 
sweeping  outworking  bulwarks  of  power,  and  right,  and  wrong,  and 
penalty;  but  that  hid  somewhere  back  in  that  government,  if  you  can 
only  get  through  all  this  mighty  maze,  you  will  find  there  is  a  little 
house  where  God  lives,  and  where  he  has  a  heart ;  and  that  there 
he  is  a  God  of  love.  And  this  is  very  naturally  the  conception,  because 
we  have  borrowed  our  notions  of  God  from  bad  analogies,  from  an  un- 
wise mode  of  philosophy,  and  from  things  Avhich  are  the  most  simple 
to  us — ^from  animal  forces,  brute  forces,  natural  forces. 

As  almost  i;niversally  men  make  God  a  magistrate  and  not  a  father; 
as  they  derive  their  ideas  of  government  from  magisterial  governments 
on  earth — from  human  governments — from  governments  whose  most 
important  principles  are  made  up  to  accommodate  man's  weakness,  and 
never  can  be  the  analogues  of  divine  government,  in  which  are  infinite 
wisdom  and  strength  ;  as  we  have  derived  our  chief  conception  of  God 
from  things  in  ourselves  and  about  ourselves,  so  it  has  come  to  pass  that 
from  the  beginning  down  to  this  day,  and  yet,  and  among  Christian 
people,  and  in  Christian  congregations,  the  predominating  idea  of  God 
is  stone — stone  at  the  foundation ;  stone  all  the  way  up  the  lighthouse  ; 
stone  until,  far  up  in  the  air,  there  is  a  little  crystal  dome,  where  the 
lighthouse  sends  out  its  light — all  stone,  except  one  small  star,  hang- 
ing in  the  void  atmosphere. 

It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  men,  in  coming  to  the  comprehension, 
to  the  love,  and  to  the  service  of  such  a  being,  have  to  cumber  them- 
selves with  huge  doubts,  suffering,  and  trouble,  before  they  work  out 
that  perfect  conception  of  God  by  which  they  are  able  to  say,  out  of 
their  own  joyous,  summer-like  consciousness,  "  He  died  for  me  /  the 
life  that  I  live  m  the  flesh  I  live  by  the  faith  of  the  Son  of  God,  who 
loved  me,  and  who  loves  me,  and  who  gave  himself  in  form  and 
shadow  once  for  me,  and  now  in  reality  is  giving  his  eternal  life,  and 
all  the  efi'ulgence  and  fullness  of  it,  is  giving  himself,  for  ever  and  for 
ever,  for  me, — -just  as  much  for  me  as  if  there  were  not  another  person 
in  the  universe,  although  there  are  countless  myriads." 

We  ai'e  to  apply  to  this  grand  centre  of  divinity  all  those  measures 
by  which  we  strive  to  interpret  infinity  in  other  directions  in  the 
divine  nature.  We  speak  of  God's  infinite  wisdom  rather  as  running 
out  along  the  line  of  science.  We  trace  all  the  gradations  in  creation. 
We  trace  all  the  mechanisms  of  the  infinite  fillings  up  that  go  from  star 
to  star.  We  then  listen  to  the  testimony  of  the  probabilities  as  respects 
the  scope,  the  extent,  the  magnitude,  of  the  physical  creation,  and  we 
are  lost  in  the  conception  of  the  wisdom  that  can  provide,  and  regu- 
late, and  care  for,  this  infinite  procession  of  things.     So  that  we  come 


GOD'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PERSONAL.  61 

to  a  very  enormous  conception  of  God's  injBnity,  in  the  direction  of 
wisdom.  And  by  the  same  line  of  reasoning,  we  trace  out  the  divine 
power,  and  gain  a  concejJtion  of  infinity  in  relation  to  the  realm  of 
physics  as  the  witness  of  God's  power. 

Now,  love  is  just  as  really  infinite  as  wisdom,  and  is  prior  to  it.  It 
has  precedence  of  it.  If  we  are  accustomed  to  think  of  God's  infi- 
nite, measureless,  unaccountable,  productive  power ;  and  if  we  think  of 
God's  infinite  being  in  the  direction  of  wisdom,  why  do  we  not  take 
the  yet  nobler  attribute  of  God's  love,  and  run  that  out  by  infinities, 
and  by  analogues  and  Illustrations  that  shall  make  it  as  vast,  as  volu- 
minous, as  potent,  as  other  divine  attributes  ?  For  it  is  his  own  con- 
sciousness, without  a  doubt,  in  which  he  glories. 

When  Moses  asked  to  be  permitted  to  behold  God,  that  he  might 
have  some  balanced  conception  of  the  divine  nature  and  government, 
four-fifths  of  the  picture  that  was  displayed  to  him,  the  dramatic  repre- 
sentation that  was  made  before  him,  was  God's  long-suffering,  and 
mercy,  and  forgiveness,  and  kindness,  and  graciousness,  and  goodness, 
and  love.  And  when  Moses  asked  to  see  God's  glory,  what  the  Lord 
himself  thought  to  be  the  most  beautiful  and  the  noblest  things  about 
himself,  were  graciousness,  goodness,  long-sufiering.  "  These,"  saith 
the  Lord,  *'  are  my  most  glorious  attributes,  although  I  will  not  clear 
the  guilty."  Such  was  the  portrait ;  and  this  was  simply  the  addition 
to  prevent  the  perversion  of  it — as  we  shall  have  occasion,  before  we 
ai"e  done,  to  prevent  the  perversion  of  the  doctrine. 

Here  is  the  equator,  if  I  may  so  say,  or  the  diameter,  of  the  divine 
nature.  It  is  greater  at  this  point  than  at  the  point  of  wisdom,  or  at 
the  point  of  power — or  rather,  it  is  more  influential.  For,  although 
we  may  not  say  that  one  divine  attribute  is  greater  than  another,  we 
may  say  that  one  has  more  emphasis,  and  more  importance,  and  more 
influence  than  another,  in  a  moral  scale. 

Love,  then,  is  the  ministrant  force  of  the  universe.  It  is  that  energy 
which  lies  behind  all  phenomena  ;  which  creates  law,  and  shapes  gov- 
ernment, and  administers  them  both.  It  is  that  which  lies  behind  all 
pain,  and  all  sorrow,  and  all  suffering.  These  things  seem  here  to 
spring  from  malign  causes,  because  many  men  think  they  do,  to  a  very 
large  extent ;  and  they  are  traced  back  and  over  to  a  demoniac  God, 
or  to  demons.  But,  according  to  the  teachings  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, God's  central  nature  is  love,  and  his  government  is  the  issue  of 
that  love  ;  and  all  the  phenomena  in  the  universe,  if  they  are  traced 
back  to  their  som-ee,  will  be  found  at  last  to  have  been  coordinated  un- 
der this  great  central  attribute  and  element  of  the  divine  character. 

Force  and  penalty  are  sent  out  by  love,  and  are  but  its  hands. 
Justice  and  indignation  ai"e  but  so  many  surgeon-hands  of  love.     The 


62  GOD'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PERSONAL. 

whole  play  of  light  and  of  shadow,  of  tears  and  of  groans,  of  soiTOws 
and  of  turmoil,  in  time,  either  have  sprung  from,  or  have  been  per- 
mitted by,  infinite  central  love,  and  at  last  will  be  found  to  have  been 
working  in  the  cause  of  that  love.  For  God  is  love  ;  and  God  is  gov- 
jernment ;  and  government  is  love  ;  and  all  phenomena  are  intimately 
blended  or  connected  with  it. 

With  these  declarations  before  us,  I  proceed  to  some  points  of 
application. 

1.  The  Love  of  God  is  the  one  truth  which  nature,  as  it  is  developed 
by  matter  alone,  cannot  teach  us.  Why  do  men  need  revelation  ? 
Because,  although  there  are  analogies  which  receive  light  afterwards, 
and  interpret  something  to  us  of  the  divine  nature,  there  is  nothing 
in  nature  itself,  as  far  as  by  that  term  we  mean  the  physical  globe, 
which  would  ever  tell  us  that  the  great  central  element  and  influence 
of  the  universe  is  love. 

Power,  wisdom,  skill,  taste,  goodness, — of  these  we  may  find  evi- 
dences in  the  divine  character  as  interpreted  through  nature  ;  but 
even  the  Apostle  Paul,  when  reasoning  to  the  Romans  in  respect  to 
the  revelations  which  nature  gave  of  God,  only  claims  that  by  nature 
they  might  know  his  "  eternal  power  and  Godhead" — that  is  to  say, 
power  and  government.  That  we  can  interpret  from  nature ;  but  who 
could  make  out  an  argument  from  nature  in  favor  of  divine  benevolence 
alone,  as  distinct  from  personal  love  ?  No  man  can.  AVhen  you  come 
to  consider  all  the  organizations  that  evidently  carry  in  their  organic 
nature  pain-producing  tendencies,  you  find  that  every  human  faculty 
kicks  back  with  just  as  much  pain  as  it  thrusts  forward  with  pleasure. 
Every  single  faculty  is  made  with  a  double  action — with  one  action 
which  is  painful,  and  another  that  is  joyful.  And  everywhere,  all  over 
the  world,  there  are  in  nature  agencies  which  tend  to  mischief — that 
is,  to  the  production  of  pain,  and  disorder,  and  disorganization,  and 
trouble.  The  whole  natural  world  presents  such  phenomena  that  one 
school  of  philosophers  think  they  come  from  chance,  and  have  no  regu- 
lation. And  thoughtful  men  in  every  age  of  the  world — Job,  and  the 
prophets,  and  all  great  natures  since  then-  time  down  to  our  present 
day,  have  reasoned  upon  this  subject.  And  yet,  it  is  one  of  the  most 
profound  pieces  of  speculation,  how  there  can  be  a  moral  government, 
and  yet  so  much  suifering  and  power  of  evil,  in  this  wq^'ld.  Where 
did  evil  come  from  ?  How  did  it  happen  to  be  in  the  world  ?  Why 
is  virtue  so  often  chastised,  and  vice  so  often  crowned  with  power  and 
with  enjoyment  ?  If  there  be  a  God,  and  a  God  who  loves,  and  is 
good  and  beneficent,  why  is  the  world  what  it  is  ?  The  world  has 
been  the  stumbling-block  of  thoughtful  men  from  the  beginning.  Nor 
do  I  believe  that  nature  can  be  made  to  teach  us  the  personal  qualities 


GOD'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PERSONAL.  63 

of  Go(l ;  and  still  less,  that  He  is  a  being  supremely  centred  in  one 
great,  divine,  universal,  impartial  personal  love. 

The  struggles  which  we  see  going  on  for  existence  among  all  the 
races  of  animals ;  that  law  of  success  in  the  brute  world  by  which 
strength  always  wins  and  weakness  is  always  compelled  to  yield,  is 
just  exactly  the  reverse  of  the  law  of  the  spiritual  kingdom,  where  they 
that  would  be  chief  are  to  be  the  servants,  and  the  weakest  are  to  be 
exalted,  as  in  the  arms  of  love,  to  the  best  experiences  of  pleasure  and 
protection.  , 

The  mode  in  which  men  are  created  and  scattered  abroad  upon  the 
earth,  through  century-long  periods,  and  left  apparently  to  themselves 
is  another  source  of  perplexity  among  thinking  men.  The  greater  part 
of  the  human  race  to-day  have  never  had  the  light  of  revelation.  Of 
the  men  that  are  spread  abroad  through  Africa,  nine  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  men  in  a  thousand  have  not  even  seen  a  twilight  revela- 
tion ;  and  the  other  one,  to  make  up  the  thousand,  has  had  only  a  twi- 
light revelation.  And  yet,  the  law  seems  to  go  abroad  upon  the  whole 
race.  Whichever  way  we  look,  suffering,  sorrow,  limitation,  mistake, 
yea,  neglect,  seems  to  be  the  order  of  things. 

And  then,  the  silence  of  God  has  always  seemed  to  me  a  profound 
mystery.  I  never  could  understand  why,  if  there  was  over  all  this 
great  world  a  Father,  and  an  eternal  Father,  and  his  nature  was  love, 
he  should  not  speak;  why  he  should  not  show  himself;  why  there 
should  not  be,  as  often  as  once  in  a  thousand  years,  an  appearance  of 
God ;  why  there  should  not  be,  at  least  once  in  a  man's  life-time,  an  an- 
swering voice  that  should  make  him  perfectly  certain  of  the  existence 
of  God,  and  of  a  moral  government ;  why,  the  race  being  made  as 
they  are,  being  besotted  as  they  are,  and  being,  as  they  are,  rolled  and 
dashed  in  waves  of  conflict,  every  one  of  which  is  made  up  of  myriad 
drops  of  blood,  and  this  life  being  a  vast  brutal  gladiation,  as  it  were, 
God  should  be  silent.  Tell  me.  Nature,  what  you  can,  of  such  a  God 
as  this.  Tell  me  if  there  be  no  need  of  a  revelation  which  shall  make 
known  to  us  that  which  is  behind  all  phenomena,  and  behind  all  that 
appears  in  the  natural  world.  There  is  something  that  nature  cannot 
interpret.  There  is  something  that  the  law  of  matter,  the  law  offeree, 
the  law  of  organization,  and  the  law  of  evolvement  and  development 
cannot  interpret.  There  is  something  that  it  needed  God's  own  self  to 
make  known,  by  holy  men  of  old,  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 

It  is  this  necessity  of  God  that  he  should  make  himself  known 
that  is  the  foundation  of  revealed  religion.  It  is  that  peculiar  need 
to-day  which  science  least  cares  for,  and  most  rejects ;  viz.,  a  suffering, 
atoning  Saviour.  It  is  th«it  which  is  most  indispensable  to  men  who 
put  away  from  them  all  their  instruction  except  that  which  they  can 


64  GOD'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PERSONAL, 

get  from  the  rocks,  from  the  soil,  from  the  stars,  from  chemistry,  from 
the  mere  elements  of  the  material  world.  The  secret  forces  of  the 
globe  leave  us  desolate,  without  a  Father,  without  love,  without  sym- 
pathy, wanderers.  We  are  as  the  mighty  icebergs  in  the  dark  winters 
of  the  North,  that  grind  each  other,  neither  knowing  what  they  do — 
only  we  know  and  feel,  but  are  impelled  by  mighty  forces.  And  if  we 
have  hope  in  this  world  only,  and  we  have  no  God  such  as  the  Gospel 
reveals  to  us,  we  are  of  all  men  most  miserable.  And  if  there  be  any 
one  thing  that  science  cannot  supply,  and  that  natural  philosophy  can- 
not supply,  it  is  this  faith  in  a  loving  God,  and  a  God  whom  we  can 
love — something  deeper  than  material  phenomena  ;  something  behind 
the  mask  of  matter — another  world  of  spii'it;  another  government  be- 
sides the  law  of  matter ;  another  Being  besides  that  fate  which  frowns, 
and  fills  the  world  with  sorrow. 

This  is  that  which  the  Gospel  of  Christ  has  brought  to  us,  and 
which  nature  could  not  give,  and  which  man  could  not  get  through 
reason. 

2.  This  truth  of  the  Divine  Love  is  the  one  truth  through  which  nature 
looks,  beyond  all  others  in  our  apprehension,  in  our  systems  of  theology, 
and  in  our  preaching.  For,  although  we  have  a  talkative  knowledge, 
though  men  speak  of  the  love  of  God,  there  are  comparatively  few  of 
us  who  have  that  crowning  knowledge  of  it  which  indicates  that  it 
is  genuine,  deep,  certain,  abiding.  There  are  very  few  who  are  able 
to  realize  more  than  this :  "  God  is  good,  and  ought  to  be  loved ;  and 
I  hope  that  I  love  Him."  But  ah !  that  greater  truth  of  which  this  is  the 
merest  inflection — "  God  loves  me,  and  has  loved  me  since  1  was  born. 
God's  nature  is  such  that  he  pours  incessant  thought  upon  me,  upon 
my  disposition,  upon  my  circumstances,  upon  my  nature,  upon  my 
trials,  and  upon  my  destiny ;  and  my  feeling  toward  my  child  that  I 
am  striving  to  bring  up,  father  or  mother  though  I  be,  is  weak  and 
pale  compared  with  the  intensity  of  the  infinite  love  that  I  am  the 
object  of  in  God" — how  many  are  there  who  have  that,  and  who  feel 
from  day-to-day  that  they  stand  up  in  the  love  of  God  ?  As  one  stands 
up  in  the  fall  sunlight  that  comes  down  upon  him,  and  bathes  him,  and 
flows  past  him,  and  covers  all  that  is  about  him,  and  goes  on  through 
leagues  and  latitudes  and  infinite  spaces,  and  in  inexhaustible  abundances ; 
so  the  love  of  God  throws  down  upon  the  world,  not  enough  to  fill  up 
your  thimble-sized  hearts  alone,  but  enough  to  overflow  you  and  go  on  in 
infinite  waves  for  uncounted  beings — and  that  forever  and  forever.  How 
many  men  are  there  who  walk  every  day,  feeling,  "  I  am  the  King's  son  ; 
I  am  the  Lord  Jehovah's ;  and  Jehovah  loves  me  by  name,  knowing  what 
my  imagination  is,  knowing  what  my  passions  and  appetites  are,  know- 
ing what  my  pride  is,  knowing  all  the  wallow  of  my  selfishness,  know- 


GOD'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PERSONAL.  65 

ing  all  the  obliquities  of  my  disposition.  Yet  when  the  eye  of  God 
rests  on  nae,  it  rests  on  me  as  a  mother's  eye  rests  upon  her  child. 
And  the  parent  does  not  love  the  child  according  to  its  deserts.  The 
parent  loves  the  child  whether  it  deserves  it  or  not.  And  it  is  God's 
nature  to  love  just  so."  How  many  are  there  who,  as  a  matter  of  ex- 
perience, feel  that  ? 

We  think  that  if  we  fix  ourselves  up  a  little,  God  will  perhaps  love 
us.  A  man  is  in  deep  distress,  and  thei'e  is  a  great  heart  in  the  neigh- 
borhood (I  hope  there  is  at  least  one  great  heart  in  every  neighbor- 
hood), and  he  is  told  that  if  he  will  go  and  tell  that  great  heart  what 
his  mistakes  have  been,  and  what  his  misfortunes  are,  that  great  heart 
will  certainly  relieve  him.  And  instantly  he  begins  to  think  of  him- 
self, and  to  fix  himself  to  go  to  that  great  heart,  covering  up  his  rags  the 
best  way  he  can,  and  hiding  his  elbows  so  that  they  shall  not  be  seen, 
and  putting  a  little  touch  on  his  shoes  that  are  clouted  and  ruptured  ; 
and  then  goes  in.  But  do  you  suppose  it  makes  any  difference  to  that 
great  heart  to  whom  he  goes,  that  his  clothes  are  a  little  less  dirty,  or 
that  they  have  a  few  less  patches  on  them,  or  that  his  shoes  are  a  little 
less  soiled  or  torn  ?  It  is  the  man  behind  the  clothes  that  the  benevo- 
lent heart  thinks  of.  It  is  not  what  the  needy  man  is,  but  what  the 
benefactor  is,  that  deterr  lines  what  he  will  do. 

Why  does  he  take  that  man  into  his  compassion,  and  say  to  him, 
"  Come  again."  Does  he  do  it  because  of  what  he  sees  in  the  man  ?  or 
because  of  what  he  feels  in  himself  f 

Why  does  a  bird  sing  ?  Because  he  thinks  you  would  like  to  hear 
him  ?  No ;  but  because  there  is  that  in  him  which  tickles  him  and  fires 
him  till  he  has  to  sing.  He  sings  to  bring  joy  out  of  himself.  He  sings 
because  it  is  his  nature  to  sing. 

A  music-box  does  not  play  because  you  say,  "  Do  play  ;"  nor  be- 
cause you  say,  "  It  is  exquisite  and  charming."  It  does  not  care  for 
your  compliments  and  comments. 

And  so  it  is  with  the  divine  nature.  That  is  the  way  God  is  made 
— if  I  may  use  human  language  in  application  to  the  divine  nature. 
That  is  being  God.  And  yet,  how  few  there  are  who  think  of  God  as 
generously  as  he  thinks  of  them  !  How  few  say,  "  I  am  loved  of  God, 
unworthy  though  I  be ;  poor  though  I  am ;  though  I  be  lean  in  all 
moral  attributes.  I  forget  him ;  but  he  never  forgets  me.  I  requite 
selfishness  for  goodness ;  but  it  never  makes  any  ripple  on  the  surface 
of  that  infinite  ocean  of  benignity  and  love.  I  am  bad  ;  I  am  unfilial ; 
I  am  ungrateful ;  I  am  wicked — desperately  wicked ;  I  am  a  trans- 
gressor in  a  multitude  of  ways  ;  and  yet  there  is  a  God  who  does  not 
forget  me,  and  who  will  hold  rae  as  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand  so  long 
as  love  can  by  holding  do  good." 


6Q  GOB'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PERSONAL. 

How  few  there  are  who  think  that  God  loves  them!  What  is  it? 
Do  you  think  you  love  God?  Do  you  think  you  have  given  your  heart 
to  Christ  ?  That  is  not  unimportant ;  but  ah !  the  other  thing  is  a 
thousand  times  more  important;  viz.,  Do  you  know  that  God  loves 
you  ?  Do  you  know  that  he  gave  himself  for  you,  and  that  he 
lives  for  your  sake,  and  that  behind  these  phenomena  of  nature  which 
we  see  on  earth  rise  the  real  life  and  the  real  world — the  great  world 
of  spirits,  where  are  God,  and  love,  and  summer,  and  eternity,  and  joy 
unspeakable  ;  and  that  they  are  yours  % 

So  neither,  as  we  leave  this  thought  of  divine  love  far  behind  in  our 
experience,  are  we  apt  to  fill  it  up  enough  in  om-  theology.  Men  have 
built  systems  of  theology  in  every  age,  and  will  and  ought  to  till  the  end 
of  the  world ;  but  men  build  their  s}'stems  of  theology,  I  think,  with  a 
great  deal  more  consideration  for  material  elements,  for  elements  that 
are  in  sympathy  with  the  lower  forms  of  existence,  than  for  elements 
that  relate  to  their  spiritual  nature.  And  above  all  things  men  have  built 
their  theology,  riveting  and  re-riveting  every  part  of  it,  so  that  it  shall 
stand  against  error  ;  so  that  it  shall  be  inexpugnable  ;  so  that  it  shall 
guard  the  government  of  God;  so  that  it  shall  keep  men  from  going  in 
this  or  that  wrong  way.  We  have  attempted  to  build  a  theology  which 
shall  prevent  men  from  going  wrong.  But  God  himself  never  prevented 
a  man's  going  wrong ;  and  you  will  never  do  it.  What  we  want  in  that 
direction  is  to  get  an  influential  conception  of  God ;  and  our  theology 
must  bring  God  out  in  such  lines,  in  such,  lineaments,  and  in  such  uni- 
versal attractiveness,  that  men  shall  follow  their  yearnings  and  drawings, 
rather  than  their  cold  reasonings  and  intellections.  We  are  perpetu- 
ally teaching  that  God  maintains  law,  and  that  he  must  maintain  gov- 
ernment ;  and  at  last  we  hear  so  much  about  law  that  we  really  come 
to  think  that  when  God  created  the  universe  he  filled  it  with  laws,  and 
afterwards  put  some  people  in  it ;  but  that  the  laws  were  the  nearest 
and  dearest  to  him.  God's  government,  men  think,  must  be  made  holy 
and  just  and  good  in  the  sight  of  all  men,  and  must  stand.  And  so  the 
impression  is  that,  first  of  all,  God  takes  care  of  his  govei-nment  arid  his 
laws,  and  then  does  whatever  he  can  after  that.  But  I  tell  you,  God 
does  not  take  care  of  his  government  and  his  laws  at  the  expense  of  his 
creatures.  One  would  think,  to  hear  theologians  reasoning  about  God 
and  the  methods  of  salvation,  and  the  motives  of  divine  procedure,  that 
he  was  a  fourth-proof  ia^vyer  judge,  and  that  he  sat  surrounded  by  in- 
finite volumes  of  statutes  and  laws,  running  back  to  eternity  and  run- 
ning forward  to  eternity  ;  and  that  in  every  case  of  mercy  he  said, 
"  Let  me  consider  first.  Does  it  agree  with  the  statute  ?"  When  a 
poor  sinner  comes  to  him,  undone,  wretched,  miserable,  he  has  to  con- 
sult his  books  to  see  whether  he  can  be  saved  so  as  not  to  injure  the 


QOD'8  LOVE  SPECIFIG  AND  PERSONAL.  67 

law,  saying,  "Let  us  examine  the  law  to  see  if  it  will  do  to  save  him." 
Oh !  away  with  this  pedantic  judge.  Such  a  judge  is  bad  enough 
in  the  necessities  of  a  weak  earthly  government,  and  is  infinitely  shame- 
ful when  brought  to  the  center  of  the  universe,  and  deified.  There  I  be- 
hold God,  flaming  with  love,  backward  and  forward,  either  way,  filling 
infinite  space  with  the  magnitude  and  blessedness  of  his  love ;  and,  if 
some  questioning  angel  asks,  "  How  shalt  thou  save  and  keep  the  law  f 
He  says, "  I  will  have  mercy  on  whom  I  will  have  mercy.  My  own  will, 
my  own  impulse,  my  own  desire,  my  own  heart — that  shall  guide  me. 
What  are  laws,  and  what  ai'e  governments,  and  what  is  anything  com- 
pared with  a  sentient  being?  I  am  law,  and  I  will  govern."  God's 
presence  is  everything  that  government  needs  ;  and  he  says,  "  I  will 
have  mercy  on  whom  I  will  have  mercy  ;  I  will  not  be  checked ;  I  will 
be  an  ocean,  without  a  shore,  boundless,  meeting  but  itself,  and  rolling 
in  an  eternal  harmony  and  blessedness  of  love." 

In  our  preaching  I  think  we  fall  just  as  much  behind  as  we  do  in 
our  personal  experience  and  our  theology.  We  have  preached  the 
truth — and  that  is  right.  We  have  pi-eached  justice — and  that  is  right. 
We  have  preached  the  necessity  of  believing  right,  and  of  sincerity  as 
well — and  that  is  right.  But,  after  all,  the  characteristic  imf)ression, 
produced  by  our  preaching,  I  fear,  has  not  been  the  influence  of  divine 
love.  It  has  not  been  the  real  central  working  power  of  the  ministry. 
It  is  that  whicn  melts  the  heart,  it  is  that  Avhich  encourages  hope,  it  is 
that  which  inspires  courage,  it  is  that  which  cleanses,  that  is  needed. 
Fear  does  but  very  little.  Fear  may  start  a  man  ou  the  road  to  con- 
version ;  but  fear  never  converted  a  man.  Truth  does  something.  It 
shows  the  way,  it  opens  a  man's  eyes ;  but  simple  truth,  mere  intellec- 
tion, never  converted  a  man.  No  man's  heart  ever  grew  rich,  no  man's 
heart  ever  had  a  God-touch  in  it,  untU  he  had  learned  to  see  God  as  one 
whom  he  loves. 

It  was  that  which  broke  my  heart.  It  was  on  an  early  spring  morn- 
ing. Oh!  how  full  of  music  were  the  woods,  as  I  remember  them, 
that  lay  beyond  my  father's  house  on  Walnut  Hill,  at  Lane  Seminary ! 
Rut  of  all  the  notes  of  birds  that  sang  in  the  trees  on  every  hand,  there 
was  not  one  which  sounded  sweet  in  my  ear.  How  full,  on  that  morn- 
ing, was  the  sky,  of  little  fleecy  clouds  that  ran  hither  and  thither,  sent 
on  errands  of  nameless  joy  !  And  yet  there  was  no  beauty  in  them  to 
me.  I  was  borne  down ;  I  was  sad ;  in  a  thousand  ways  I  was 
orphaned  and  gudlcss  ;  until,  suddenly,  as  the  result  of  some  readings 
and  discussions  preceding,  I  was  raised  to  a  conception  of  God,  not  as 
a  Being  who  did  things  on  plan,  or  on  purpose,  but  as  one  whose 
nature  was  medicinal  ;  whose  inevitable  and  chief  characteristic  was 
love ;  who  loved  because  that  was  existence  to  him  j  who  pom-ed  out 


68  GOD'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PEBSONAL. 

his  love  upon  all,  whether  they  would  see  it  or  not,  and  whether  they 
would  take  it  or  not. 

In  other  words,  when  I  had  a  God  whom  I  could  call  Love,  uni- 
versal, infinite,  ineffable,  from  that  moment  I  said,  "I  can  worship 
God.  I  can  Avorship,  not  power,  not  threat,  but  Love.  I  cannot  worship 
a  God  who,  having  created  such  a  world  as  this  is,  and  such  creatures 
as  these  are,  lays  a  line  of  strict  justice  upon  them;  but  I  can  worship 
a  God  who  deals  with  men  as  a  father  deals  with  his  children." 

Oh  !  what  a  hell  this  world  has  been !  Oh  !  how  men  have  been 
like  grapes  in  the  wine-vat,  and  had  the  blood  crushed  out  of 
them!  Tears  and  blood-di*ops  have  been  innumerable;  aud  the  shores 
of  eternity  have  been  beaten  on  incessantly  by  the  waves  of  sorrow 
and  trouble  that  have  rolled  in  from  this  world.  And  I  cannot  see  in  all 
these  things  any  evidence  that  God  is  a  Being  of  love.  It  is  not  until 
revelation  brings  before  my  mind  the  conception  that  behind  these  phe- 
nomena, that  are  transient,  and  shall  pass  away,  there  rises  the  blessed- 
ness, the  riches,  the  heart  of  the  Eternal  Lover,  that  I  can  lie  down 
and  say,  "  Thou  art  my  God.  Do  thou  what  thou  wilt.  Thy  will  be 
done  in  heaven,  and  thy  vsdll  be  done  on  earth ;  and  chiefly,  and  first, 
thy  will  be  done  in  this  poor  sin-sick  heart  of  mine." 

I  can  love  love,  but  I  cannot  love  mere  justice.  When,  however, 
love  is  also  just ;  when  love  is  infinitely  true  and  pure  and  beautiful ; 
when  love  is  radiant  with  taste  ;  when  love  is  that  which  spans  the 
night  with  glory,  and  makes  the  day  efflorescent  with  beauty ;  when 
you  thus  give  to  love  the  very  attribute  of  grandeur — then  it  becomes 
all  the  more  priceless.  But  first  there  must  be  love.  Love  first,  and 
not  justice ;  love  first,  and  not  condemnation.  Let  love  be  supreme, 
and  then  I  can  worship. 

This,  too,  will  give  you  to  understand  what  it  is  that  men  mean  by 
faith — if  you  will  bear  for  a  moment  such  a  deviation.  The  precep- 
tion  of  this  true  character  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  the  appropriation 
of  it  to  your  own  self — that  is  what  we  understand  by  saving  personal 
faith.  The  generic  meaning  of  faith  is  simply  such  a  use  of  your  rea- 
son and  your  moral  faculties  that  you  are  conscious  of  the  great  invisi- 
ble truths  of  the  realm.  Faith  is  "the  evidence  of  things  not  seen."  It 
is  the  living,  not  in  materiality  as  interpreted  by  sense,  but  in  great 
traths  that  are  interpreted  by  the  moral  sentiments,  or  by  moral  intu- 
ition. 

But  there  are  special  faiths — for  there  may  be  a  great  variety  of 
specifics  under  this  generic  ;  and  the  great  special  flnth  is  that  by 
which  a  soul,  beholding  Christ  who  is  altogether  lovely  and  loving,  re- 
alizes it,  or  takes  him  home  to  itself,  and  says,  "  That  is  my  God.  He 
loves  me.    He  gave  himself  for  me."    This  is  the  supreme  act  of  faith; 


GOD'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PERSONAL.  69 

and  this  saves.  It  brings  the  mind  into  such  a  condition  that  it  in- 
stantly is  in  communication  with  God. 

A  young  man  stands  in  a  telegrajDh  office,  and  along  the  line  of 
the  wires  is  tlie  passage  of  electricity ;  and  he  hears  the  dumb  ticks  of 
the  instrument ;  but  they  mean  nothing  to  him.  He  looks  on,  as  a 
child  would  look  on  ;  but  still  these  various  ticks  signify  nothing  to  his 
ear.  But  by-and-by  the  operator  draws  out  from  under  the  needle- 
point a  long  strip  of  printed  paper ;  and  it  is  a  message  from  the  man's 
father,  saying  to  him,  "  Come  home."  Ilome-sick  he  has  been,  and 
longing  for  permission  to  go.  And  oh  !  in  one  instant,  in  one  flash, 
how  that  young  man's  feeling  is  changed  !  A  moment  ago,  as  he  looked 
on  that  dumb  wii'e,  it  was  nothing  to  him ;  but  now  he  sees  it  as  the 
instrument  whose  ticks  have  written  that  message  from  his  father, 
"Come  home." 

Here  was  a  heart  conscious  of  its  need,  longing,  yearning,  homesick, 
going  hither  and  thither ;  and  not  finding  an  answer  to  its  aspiration, 
nor  satisfaction  to  its  longing,  it  is  brought  at  length  to  that  position 
in  which  the  truth  comes  breaking  through  it.  Partly  by  the  imagi- 
nation, partly  by  the  reason,  much  more  by  the  moral  intuition,  and 
more  than  all  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  truth  comes  down 
upon  the  soul,  saying,  "  Child  thou  art.  The  Father  am  I.  I  love  thee 
with  an  everlasting  love.  Thy  name  is  graven  on  my  hand.  As  lovers 
carry  the  portrait  of  their  dear  ones,  or  have  their  names  inscribed  about 
their  persons,  so  thy  name  is  engraved  upon  my  hand,  and  thy  likeness 
has  been  in  the  palm  of  that  hand."  In  that  blessed  moment  of  intu- 
ition there  is  a  realization  of  that  full  form  and  experience  of  faith  which 
works  by  love  and  saves  the  soul. 

With  this  conception  of  the  divine  love  in  our  minds,  we  are  pre- 
pared to  form  some  idea  of  the  nature  and  issue  of  that  mixed  and 
strange  course  which  we  call  human  love.  I  think  that  when  the  Gos- 
pel has  refined  a  community,  and  inspired  industry,  skill  and  education ; 
when  philosophy  has  cleansed  it  in  certain  directions,  and  art  in  certain 
others,  and  virtue  in  certain  others ;  when  the  household  is  built  up, 
and  a  man  has  a  glorious  father  and  a  noble  mother,  and  has  been 
brought  up  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord,  and  has  been 
reared  to  believe  a  jjerfect  system  of  theology,  and  has  good  health,  and 
wealth  enough,  and  good  prospects,  he  is  apt  to  sit  down  and  say, 
"  Well,  I  believe  in  my  religion ;  and  I  do  not  see  any  reason 
for  doubts,  or  fears,  or  any  trouble  whatever.  Everything  is  clear 
to  me.  It  is  perfectly  just  that  God  should  be  what  I  hear  he 
is."  Persons  who  are  wrapped  in  comforts  and  consolations  do  not 
feel  any  need.  But  suppose  you  should  forget  yourself;  suppose  you 
should  take  those  sermons  which  you  hear  preached  out  of  the  pulpit^ 


70  OOD'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PEBSONAL. 

of  the  exceeding  justice  of  God,  and  of  the  sovereignty  of  God,  and 
sit  down  and  apply  them,  for  a  moment,  to  the  Laplanders,  and  con- 
sider who  they  are  ;  what  their  development  has  been  ;  what  the  natu- 
ral and  artificial  laws  are  under  which  they  have  been  brought  up  ;  and 
what  are  the  possibilities  of  human  nature  under  such  circumstances  ? 
Go.  on  to  the  Tartars,  and  the  Calmucks,  and  the  Chinese ;  and  to  the 
islands  of  Oceanica — Sumatra,  and  Java,  and  the  others ;  and  to  the 
great  unexplored  regions  of  Africa.  Gather  together  the  human  races, 
and  consider  under  what  sun  they  have  lived,  and  what  privileges  they 
have  had,  and  what  their  nature  is.  Consider  what  the  great  God  has 
created  them  to.  Consider  what  wars  have  devastated  them.  And 
consider  what  men  have  been  in  civilized  nations.  Consider  what  the 
history  of  the  globe  has  been.  And  then  come  back  home  again.  Go 
out  of  your  pleasant  houses  ;  go  among  men  that  are  in  trouble  round 
about  you.  Take  your  statistics  and  solve  the  problems  of  actual  life 
with  them.  Take  into  account  the  bankruptcy  of  this  man,  and  the 
utter  degradation  of  that  man.  Think  how  society  treats  a  man  who 
has  transgressed  its  laws,  and  how  hard  it  is  for  a  man  who  has  taken 
one  wrong  step  to  get  back  again. 

Life  is  full  of  poisonous,  jagged  justice  ;  and  if  a  man  take  benev- 
olence, with  these  doubts,  and  go  out  and  look  at  life  as  it  actually  is, 
I  do  not  know  what  will  save  him  from  infidelity,  unless  he  has  back 
of  all  phenomena  a  government  and  a  Governor  whose  name  and 
whose  attribute  is  absolute  Love,  and  from  which  he  learns  that  all 
these  phenomena  are  specious  and  illusory  and  transitional,  and  that 
the  time  is  coming  for  them  to  take  on  other  and  more  advanced  forms. 

You  know  that  when  the  seed  sprouts  it  dies.  If  the  seed  were  a 
philosopher,  it  would  think  that  a  hard  way  to  live.  The  seed  dies  be- 
fore it  lives.  And  so  it  is  with  men,  in  a  spiritual  sense.  Sorrow  is 
the  frost  that  cracks  the  nut  that  lets  the  germ  out  into  the  ground. 
Troubles  are  God's  rains  in  this  world.  Irritations,  rude  convulsions, 
rough  experiences,  by  various  methods — these  are  the  means  by  which 
God  is  preparing  a  moral  soil  for  the  future.  I  do  not  know  what  the 
reasons  are  for  these  things.  I  cannot  answer  all  the  theological  ques- 
tions which  arise  among  men,  minister  though  I  am.  Doubtless  you 
think  that  because  I  am  a  minister,  I  ought  to  know  everything ;  but 
I  do  not  know  everything  about  theology.  I  know  very  little  about 
it.  I  know  very  little  about  God.  There  is  not  a  man  nor  a  child 
here  who  does  not  think  that  he  knows  more  than  I  do.  The  sura  of 
my  knowledge  is  this :  I  do  believe  in  the  Divine  Being.  My  soul 
says,  "  Certainly  there  is  a  God ;"  and  it  says  that  that  God  is  paternal  •, 
and  that  the  divine  government  is  a  family  government,  and  not  a 
magisterial  nor  monarchical  government ;  and  that  it  is  a  personal  gov- 


GOD'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PERSONAL.  71 

eminent,  generated  in  love,  carried  ont  in  love,  and  to  be  consum 
mated  in  love  ;  and  that  behind  the  blackness,  the  tear,  the  pang,  the 
wrong  and  the  sin,  there  is  to  be  evolved  in  the  eternal  ages  the 
triumph  of  love. 

For  everybody  ?  I  cannot  measm-e.  All  I  know  is  this  :  if  there 
be  one  soul  that  at  last  comes  short  of  eternal  life,  it  will  be  because 
that  soul  has  stood  up  in  the  very  tropical  atmosphere  of  divine  love, 
and  that  love  has  poured  itself  upon  that  soul  without  obstruction,  and 
it  was  absolutely  immedicable  and  unhealable.  Only  those  will  be  lost 
whom  love  could  not  save  ;  and  if  you  are  lost,  it  will  not  be  because 
you  missed  a  narrow  switch,  and  just  did  not  come  out  right ;  nor  be- 
cause you  run  off  the  track  by  being  moved  one-tenth  part  of  an  inch 
in  the  wi'ong  du-ection  ;  nor  because  you  made  mistakes  in  your  faith ; 
nor  because  you  were  unfortunate ;  nor  because  you  did  not  do  this,  that, 
oi"  the  other  thing  which  the  churches  prescribe  ;  nor  because  you  did 
not  believe  this,  that  or  the  other  doctrine  held  by  the  churches.  You 
will  never  be  God's  castaway  until  rivers  of  infinite  love  have  been 
poured  on  you.  And  then,  if  you  are  not  changed,  ought  you  not  to 
be  a  castaway "? 

What  those  steps  are,  or  how  they  are  to  be  taken,  I  know  not. 
Only  this  I  know  :  love  is  a  fixct  ;  and  the  divine  administration  of 
love  is  a  truth ;  and  the  ages  are  God's.  And  I  have  more  faith  in 
what  Love  will  think  it  is  best  to  do,  than  in  what  theologians  think  it 
is  best  to  do  ;  and  I  believe  God  will  take  this  great  sinning,  sorrow- 
ing, blood-shedding  world  up  into  his  arms,  and  comfort  it,  as  a  mother 
comforts  her  sorrowing  children.  And  I  believe  that  sighing  shall 
flee  away,  that  God  will  wipe  all  tears  from  men's  eyes,  and  that  all 
the  sorrows  which  have  made  the  earth  wi'etched  in  days  gone  by,  he 
will,  in  his  own  way,  and  according  to  his  own  good  pleasure,  medi- 
cate ;  so  that  at  last  the  universal  Father,  with  the  universal  house- 
hold, shall  sit  central  in  the  universe,  God  over  all,  blessed  and  blessing 
forever  more. 

Will  you  not  join  those  who  have  faith  in  such  a  paternal  govern- 
ment ?  Will  you  not  belong  to  Him  who  calls  you,  if  by  authority, 
yet  by  the  authority  of  love  ?  Will  you  join  yourself  to  the  dark,  to 
the  selfish,  to  the  brutal,  to  the  ignoble  ?  Will  you  not  rise  among 
God's  people,  who  live  by  faith,  by  hope,  by  the  sweet  purities  of  a 
refined  love  ?  Will  you  not  sign  yourself  his,  and  call  him  "  My 
Saviour,  my  God,"  and  say,  with  the  apostle,  "  The  life  that  I  now 
live  in  the  flesh  I  live  by  faith  of  the  Son  of  Ggd,  who  loved  me,  and 
gave  himself  for  me  "  ? 


72  GOB'8  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PERSONAL. 

PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON.* 

Draw  near  to  us,  thou  divine  Spirit.  Awaken  all  our  moral  sense  and 
all  our  affection,  and  quicken  our  imaginations,  that  we  may  lift  ourselves 
above  fear,  and  above  sight,  and  above  the  flesh,  and  above  matter,  and 
above  all  time  and  history,  and  every  appearance  of  conflict,  and  call  thee 
Father.  How,  through  all  the  conflict  of  time,  thy  name  breathes  music  1 
It  thou  art,  and  if  love  is  with  thee,  abiding  forevermore  as  the  foundation 
of  thy  government,  all  shall  be  well.  We  know  not  what  we  are  driving  to, 
nor  the  way  in  which  the  world  is  traveling,  that  groans  and  travails  in 
pain  until  now.  Nor  can  we  know  what  the  unfoldings  of  things  shall  bring 
to  pass.  But  if  thou  art  love,  and  if  thou  dost  interpret  thy  love  to  us  by 
the  language  of  love  in  the  household,  so  that  we  may  know  God,  even  as 
children  know  their  parents,  and  may  understand  thy  will  and  thy  motive, 
and  all  the  feelings  with  which  thou  art  administering,  even  as  most  beloved 
children  understand  the  will  and  reasons  which  actuate  their  parents,  then 
all  is  peace ;  and  we  care  not  what  shall  happen,  for  we  know  that  in  the  end 
everything  shall  round  up  out  of  night  into^the  morning  of  everlasting  glad- 
ness. O  Lord  God !  if  the  stretching  out  of  the  right  haad  of  thy  power,  and 
if  all  the  solemnity  and  amplitude  of  thy  justice,  are  but  the  vocalizations  of 
love;  if  we  behold  thee  truest  and  best  when  we  discern  thee  loving  with  an 
infinite  love  whose  outpouring  is  the  life  of  the  universe ;  and  if  thou  art  our 
God  most  when  we  are  nearest  to  thee  in  affection,  then  what  can  go  wrong  ? 
What  punishment  is  too  much,  which  love  inflicts?  What  suflering  is  too 
severe,  which  love  thinks  best?  If  thou  art  infinite  in  thy  love,  and  art 
guiding  infinite  love  in  application  by  infinite  wisdom,  why  should  we  not 
rejoice?  All  things  shall  now  work  together  for  good  to  them  who  love 
thee,  and  are  beloved  of  thee.  And  so,  what  we  cannot  find  in  wandering 
thought,  nor  in  the  mazes  of  reasoning;  what  we  cannot  by  searching  find 
out  without  God,  nor  even  in  God,  that  we  know  by  faith  in  divine  love. 
And  we  rest  in  thee,  and  rejoice  in  thee.  We  rejoice  alike  in  storm  and  in 
calm;  in  light  and  in  darkness;  by  day  and  by  night;  in  things  troubled, 
and  in  things  tranquil.  Wherever  we  are — at  home,  or  wandering  wide 
among  strangers;  sick  or  well;  prospered  or  turned  over  and  over,  as  the 
leaf  is  whirled  by  the  tempest,  whatever  befalls  us  is  right.  For  all  of  life 
is  but  a  little  price  for  seeing  thee  by  and  by,  and  being  in  thy  image,  and 
being  satisfied. 

And  we  rejoice,  O  Lord  our  God,  that  we  have  the  privilege  of  this  faith, 
and  that  we  may  rest  upon  it,  and  trust  all  our  hope,  and  our  very  souls 
to  it. 

Now,  we  pray  that,  as  thou  art  love,  so  more  and  more  the  lineaments  of 
our  Father's  face  may  appear  to  us.  And  grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  we  may 
be  able  to  bring  the  spirit  with  which  thou  art  ruling  the  heaven  above, 
into  our  own  hearts  and  households.  Grant  that  we  may  be  able  more  per- 
fectly to  love  one  another — to  love  one  another  with  the  disinterestedness 
of  divine  love,  and  with  something  of  the  divine  patience,  and  with  some- 
thing of  the  divine  richness.  May  we  grow  in  that  direction  more  and 
more. 

Grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  all  households  may  be  households  of  love. 
And  more  especially|we  pray,  this  morning,  that  thy  dear  servants  who  have 
come  hither  into  our  midst,  and  have,  before  their  brethren,  dedicated  these 
children  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  promising  to  bring  them  up  in  the  fear 
of  God,  and  in  the  ordinances  of  the  sanctuary,  may  never  fail  in  their  in- 
tentions. May  they  have  wisdom  and  grace  ministered  to  them,  to  bring 
up  their  children  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord.  May  their 
children's  lives  be  spared  unto  them.  And  yet,  if  it  is  best  that  they  should 
fly  away  before  the  summer  is  over,  we  pray  that  they  may  fly  as  birds,  and 
sing  in  the  branches  of  the  tree  of  life.    And  so  may  they  sing  that  their 

'Immediately  following  the  baptism  of  oMldreo. 


GOD'S  LOVE  8PECIFIG  AND  PERSONAL.  73 

bereaved  parents  shall  hear  by  faith  their  call,  and  come  toward  them  every 
day,  step  by  step,  sure  that  they  are  nearer  to  all  that  they  have  loved  and 
ail  that  is  gone  before. 

If  there  be  any  in  the  congregation  who  are  bereaved  of  their  children, 
and  whose  hearts  are  touched,  this  morning,  by  the  sight  of  these  sweet  faces, 
that  bring  back  recollections  of  their  own,  we  pray  that  upon  them  may  rest 
the  cooling  dew  of  divine  comfort,  and  that  God  may  be  very  near  to  speak 
consolation  to  them  to-day. 

If  there  be  any  Avho  are  mourning  over  their  children,  and  are  anxious 
for  them,  and  are  pained  or  troubled  in  their  behalf,  helpthem,  dear  Saviour, 
to-day,  to  stand  in  the  midst  of  their  brethren  and  realize  the  faithfulness 
of  a  covenant-keeping  God,  and  to  cast  their  care  upon  him.  For  why 
should  we  cast  those  cares  on  God  which  are  as  the  light  dust  of  the  road, 
and  withhold  those  cares  which,  like  the  rocks,  do  crush  us  ?  May  every 
one  know  how  to  cast  heart-cares,  and  inward  cares,  and  unspL-akable  cares, 
and  sorrows,  and  troubles,  upon  God,  who  loves  and  cares  for  all  his  crea- 
tures. 

And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  children  may  grow  up  in 
right  wa^s  in  our  midst,  walking  in  the  footsteps  of  their  parents,  in  so  far 
as  their  parents  are  following  Christ.  We  thank  thee  that  there  are  so  many 
iu  our  midst  who  have  been  taught  to  serve  thee,  and  that  there  are  so 
many  who  have  grown  up  in  our  sight  and  are  walking  in  the  ways  of  vir- 
tue and  integrity  and  piety.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  a  blessing  upon 
them,  and  upon  their  children,  and  upon  their  children's  children. 

And  we  pray  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  all  the  members  of  this  con- 
gregation may  live  and  be  converted,  and  have  the  presence  of  God  their 
Father. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  sanctify  all  the  afflictions  that  are  sent  upon  ua 
in  thy  providence — all  losses;  all  bereavements  and  confusions;  all  labor  in 
overmcasure.  Whatever  pressure  is  hard  to  be  borne,  whatever  thing  is  too 
sharp  for  our  patience,  answer  us,  if  we  pray  for  its  removal,  "  My  grace  shall 
be  sufficient  for  thee."  Oh  !  for  that  grace  which  is  forgiving  and  victorious ! 
Oh !  for  that  grace  which  redeems  life  while  we  have  it,  and  redeems  it 
while  it  is  passing  away!  Oh!  for  that  grace  which  shall  make  death 
itself  to  us  the  sound  of  joy,  that  we  may  through  it  meet  our  God. 

And  now  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  us  in  the  further  service  of  the 
sanctuary — in  speakmg,  in  reading,  and  in  all  that  we  shall  be  called  to  do. 
And  wilt  thou  bless  all  thy  people  who  are  gathered  together  to-day,  where- 
ever  they  are.  And  more  and  more  may  the  fruit  of  the  Gospel  abound. 
May  the  preaching  of  thy  servants  be  leavened  with  the  Spirit  of  God,  sent 
down  from  on  high.  If  any  of  them  are  in  difficult  places,  if  any  are  in 
sickness  and  jDoverty  and  discouragement  through  lack  of  fruit,  may  they 
labor  still  by  laith,  persevering. 

Grant  us,  this  day,  a  special  blessing  of  heart.  As  outward  things 
are  denied  us,  more  abundantly  may  we  have  inward  riches  through  the 
grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

We  pray  for  all  the  States  in  this  nation — especially  for  those  that  are 
new,  and  for  those  that  arc  struggling  to  lay  the  foundations  of  future  days. 
Grant  that  schools  and  churches  may  spring  up  everywhere  and  minister 
to  them  and  sanctify  them.  Grant  that  everywhere,  all  over  this  land, 
justice  may  prevail.  More  and  more  may  it  be  humane.  More  and  more 
may  it  be  the  justice  of  love.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  make  tiiis  great  peo- 
ple, not  greedy  of  power,  not  avaricious  of  wealth,  but  to  desire  truth,  and 
purity,  and  righteousness,  and  liberty,  and  intelligence,  and  piety  over  all 
the  earth.  May  we  be  strong,  not  for  destroying,  but  for  blessing.  Let  us 
be  rich,  not  for  luxury  and  selfishness,  but  for  beneficence.  And  may  this 
great  land,  calling  itself  Christian,  be  Christ's  indeed. 

And  look  upon  the  nations  of  the  earth.  Oh !  grant  that  the  time  may 
speedily  come  when  thou  canst  afford  to  sheath  thy  sword.     Grant  that  the 


74  GOD'S  LOVE  SPECIFIC  AND  PERSONAL. 

day  may  so  soon  come  of  knowledge  and  of  justice  among  men,  that  thou 
Shalt  not  be  obliged  to  chastise  them  with  burning  flames.  May  wars  cease, 
and  the  provocations  and  causes  of  war,  and  all  nations  at  last  study  tne 
welfare  one  of  another,  and  the  whole  earth  be  redeemed.      ^  _ 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise,  Father,  Son  and  Spirit.     A^nm. 


The  Heavenly  State. 


INVOCATION. 

We  pray  for  the  spirit  of  light,  O  our  Father  1  •which  shall  redeem  us  f roin 
our  lower  nature,  and  lift  us  up  into  the  divinity  which  is  within.  For  we 
are  the  sons  of  God,-  and  are  called  by  thy  name.  And  we  pray  that  we  may 
live  in  thy  Spmt,  and  out  of  our  own  hearts  interpret  thee.  And  as  children 
by  letters  learn  things  of  magnitude,  putting  small  things  together  for  great 
meanings,  so,  out  of  our  little  experiences  of  love,  and  kindness,  and  gener- 
osity, and  helpfulness,  and  patience,  and  self-sacrifice,  small  as  they  are, 
help  us  to  spell  out  something  of  the  grandeur  of  that  nature  of  love  and 
that  glory  of  helpfulness  which  is  in  thee,  and  by  reason  of  which  the  whole 
universe  doth  live.  And  so  bring  us  into  thy  presence  with  filial  awe,  yet 
not  with  fear;  with  a  trembling  solicitude,  but  not  with  a  slave's  tremblmg. 
May  we  be  able  to  look  up  and  call  thee  Father  in  the  midst  of  our  highest 
thoughts  of  thee,  and  to  rejoice  that  thou  art  ours,  and  that  we  are  thine. 
Thus  fulfill  to-day  thy  promises  to  us  in  this  ministration  of  thyself.  Bless 
us  in  the  reading  of  thy  Word,  and  in  the  sacred  songs  of  praise  which  we 
offer.  Bless  us  in  the  ofi&ces  of  devotion  and  fellowship  one  with  another 
in  joy,  and  m  all  the  labor  of  the  day.  We  ask  it  for  Christ's  sake.  Amen. 
6 


THE  HEAVENLY  STATE. 


For  in  the  resurrection  they  neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  marriage,  but 
are  as  the  angels  of  God  in  heaven. — Matt,  xxii.,  30. 


You  wiU  recoHect  that  this  is  a  part  of  the  discussion,  or  series  of 
discussions,  which  grew  up  in  Jerusalem,  and  during  the  progress  of 
which  every  one  of  the  schools,  and  almost  every  one  of  the  factions 
had  then-  turn  in  propounding  to  Christ  their  difficult  questions.  The 
philosophy  of  the  Jews  consisted  largely  to  the  whole  Oriental  peo- 
ple, of  puzzles,  and  riddles,  and  enigmas,  and  proverbs,  and  dark  say- 
ings— little  curiosities  of  ingenuity  which  represented  no  solid  and  sub- 
stantial truth. 

Here  is  a  specimen  of  the  way  in  which  they  taught — for  this  was 
considered  to  be  very  sound  by  the  profound  of  the  Sadducees,  who  did 
not  believe  that  there  was  resurrection  ;  who  professed  to  follow 
conscientiously  the  Jewish  Scrijitures,  and  to  be  the  truest  of  the  repre- 
sentatives of  Moses  and  his  institutes.  According  to  the  system  of  the 
Jews,  by  which  the  property  was  to  be  kept  in  the  several  families  of 
the  tribe,  if  a  man  died,  his  widow  was  taken  to  his  next  brother,  and 
she  became  his  wife ;  for  polygamy  was  permitted,  in  the  early  Jewish 
history  at  any  rate.  So  they  propounded  a  case.  There  were  seven 
brothers,  and  in  turn  they  all  conveniently  died,  for  the  purpose  of  the 
story,  and  the  woman  passed  from  one  to  another,  and  became,  in  suc- 
cession, according  to  this  system  of  the  Jews,  the  wife  of  each.  "  Now/' 
say  they,  "in  the  other  life  whose  shall  she  be  ? — for  all  seven  had  her." 
The  answer  of  the  Saviour  was  this,  substantially :  "  You  are  a  set 
of  ignorant  fools ! "  It  was  couched  in  other  language,  but  it  came 
to  that.  He  said,  "Ye  do  err,  not  knowing  the  Scriptures,  nor  the 
power  of  God."  It  was  saying,  in  other  words,  "  Ye  blunder;  and  the 
ignorance  of  your  stupid  blunder  is  two-fold — first,  from  a  want  of 
knowledge  of  your  own  Scriptures,  and  second,  from  a  lack  of  under- 
standing the  law  of  things — the  everlasting  law  of  nature — that  is,  tho 
power  of  God."  "For,"  said  he,  "in  the  resurrection  they  neither 
marry  nor  are  given  in  marriage,  but  are  as  the  angels  of  God." 

SuNT>AY  MoRNiNo,  Oct.  9,  1870.  Lesson  :  Key.  V.  Hymns  (Plymouth  Collection)  Kos, 
1258,  1273.  "Shining  Shore." 


76  THE  HE  A  VENL  T  STA  TB. 

Well,  Low  is  that  ?  He  did  not  say.  He  likened  them  to  the  an- 
gels, but  did  not  tell  us  how  the  angels  were.  It  was  rather  negative. 
He  declared  that  one  potential,  universal  part  of  the  economy  of 
human  life,  with  all  its  incidents  and  concomitants,  stopped  at  the 
grave.  This  is  the  part  of  man  out  of  which  multitudinous  history, 
good  and  bad,  is  derived.  But  useful  as  it  is,  it  ceases,  and  does 
not  go  on  into  the  other  life ;  and  it  seems  very  natural,  since  man  is 
a  double  being,  born  for  this  lower  life,  in  transition  and  formation  for 
a  life  to  come,  that  a  portion  of  the  powers  or  faculties  which  fit  him 
especially  for  this  lower  life,  when  they  shall  have  performed  their 
function,  will,  as  it  were,  like  the  calyx  of  a  flower,  wither  and  fall 
back,  and  that  into  the  other  life  we  shall  carry  only  those  parts  of  om* 
nature  which  are  highest  and  noblest,  and  which  have  relation  to  the 
spiritual  rather  than  to  the  physical. 

Therefore  the  reply  of  om-  Master  to  this  question  in  reference  to 
the  future  state  is  not  only  remarkable  for  what  it  says,  but  is  quite 
as  remarkable  for  what  it  leaves  unsaid.  For  both  here  and  every- 
where you  will  be  struck,  Avhen  you  come  to  analyze  it  in  the  light  of 
modern  inquiries  and  modern  knowledges,  with  how  little  is  actually 
taught  us  in  respect  to  the  other  state,  in  the  Bible.  It  is  declared  that 
Christ  "  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light,"  as  he  did ;  but  he  cer- 
tainly did  not  i-eveal  them  in  all  their  metes  and  bounds,  nor  in  their 
regnant  philosophy. 

It  is  affirmed  here  that  the  Old  Testament  recognizes  the  existence 
of  men  after  death.  "  Ye  do  err,  not  knowing  the  Scriptures,  nor  the 
power  of  God."  He  knew  that  they  were  Sadducees,  and  that  they  held 
the  doctrine  that  there  was  no  resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  therefore 
no  immortality ;  and  they  based  it  on  the  Scriptures.  And  his  declara- 
tion to  them  that  they  erred  in  that  philosophy,  because  they  did  not 
understand  the  Old  Testament  Scripture  on  which  it  was  based,  must,  it 
seems  to  me,  be  taken  as  affirming  that  in  his  judgment  the  Old  Testa- 
ment Scriptures  did  recognize  a  future  existence.  This  may  seem  strange 
to  any  who  have  never  thought  of  it ;  but  an  examination  of  the  ques- 
tion will  show  you  that  it  almost  required  some  such  affirmation  as 
this  to  give  us  liberty  to  believe  that  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures 
did  teach  any  such  thing.  For  the  question  of  continued  existence 
is  only  recognized  in  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  not  taught  there. 
And  from  the  beginning  of  that  first  dispensation  to  the  end  of 
it;  from  the  opening  chapter  of  Genesis  to  the  closing  chapter  of 
the  record  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  doctrine  of  future  rewards  and 
punishments,  of  immortality  in  bliss  or  of  penalty  in  the  other  life,  is 
never  once  explicitly  taught.  But  a  great  many  times  it  is  recog- 
nized.    And  you  will  perceive  that  this  makes  a  great  deal  of  differ- 


THE  HE  A  VENL  Y  ST  A  TE.  7  7 

ence.     There  can  be  no  question,  it  seems  to  me,  that  a  dim  faith 
did  exist. 

The  reasoner  who  wrote  the  Hebrews — Apollos,  probably — is  ar- 
guing on  the  subject  of  the  faith  of  the  patriarchs,  when  he  declares 
that  they  endorsed  what  they  did,  not  with  reference  to  things  seen, 
but  with  reference  to  something  coming ;  this  indicates  that  they  had 
a  glimmer  of  faith.  It  breaks  out  still  stronger  in  the  Psalms  ;  and  in 
the  later  prophets  it  becomes  more  and  more  luminous.  And  if  the 
question  were  this.  Is  it  to  be  believed  that  the  advanced  moral  spirits 
of  the  Old  Testament  history  had  a  faith  in  continued  existence ;  and 
that  this  continued  existence  followed  the  two  lines  of  joy  and  sorrow, 
according  to  the  foregoing  character?  then  I  think  there  should  be  no 
two  opinions  about  it :  for  I  believe  they  did  have  these  glimpses  and 
these  intimations.  But  then,  were  these  truths  ever  wrought  into  au- 
thoritative statements,  and  by  inspiration  made  to  be  part  and  parcel  of 
the  truth,  touching  all  the  institutes  of  Moses  and  the  prophets  %  No, 
no ;  nowhere ;  not  once.  So  far  from  it,  you  may  read  the  first  five  books 
of  Moses  through  from  beginning  to  end,  and  you  shall  not  find  one 
hint  of  it.  It  is  an  astounding  fact,  that  that  economy  for  the  govern- 
ment of  nations  and  men,  including  both  their  political  and  religious 
institutions  and  their  history — the  whole  Mosaic  economy — lies  open 
before  us,  and  there  is  not  a  single  instance  in  which  a  motive  is 
addressed  to  man  drawn  from  his  immortality.  There  is  not  in  the 
Old  Testament  a  single  instance  in  which  an  authoritative  motive  is 
addressed  to  the  human  heart,  saying,  "  If  you  do  this,  you  will  aftei* 
death  be  punished ;"  nor  is  there  a  single  instance  in  which  it  is  said, 
"If  you  live  thus,  after  death  you  shall  go  on  forever  and  forever." 

There  were  men  in  the  Old  Testament  times  who  believed  it,but  it 
never  became  a  part  of  the  authoritative  canon  ;  and  never  was  it  a 
motive,  either  of  sin  or  virtue  in  the  Old  Testament  way  of  teaching 
men.  On  the  contrary,  all  the  motives  were  di-awn  from  secular 
things.  Virtue  shall  bring  in  this  life  its  reward,  and  wickedness  shall 
bring  its  punishment — this  is  the  key-note  of  that  sublime  drama  of 
Job  in  which,  arguing  from  that  basis,  the  friends  of  Job  said  to  him, 
"  Since  wickedness  is  punished  in  this  life,  and  virtue  in  this  life  is 
rewarded,  and  since  you  are  horribly  punished,  it  must  be  that  you 
have  been  horribly  wicked.  And  it  is  quite  in  vain  for  you  to  say 
that  you  have  not  been,  and  to  appeal  to  your  open  life.  You  have  been 
a  hypocrite,  and  have  hid  your  conduct:  but  God  has  found  it  out ;  and 
.that  is  the  reason  why  you  are  now  sufiering,"  We  should  suppose 
that  under  such  circumstances  Job  would  have  said,  at  once,  "  Good 
conduct  in  this  life  does  not  always  get  its  reward,  but  waits  for  it  un-* 
til  the  life  to  come."     We  should  suppose  that  Job  would  have  eaid, 


78  TEE  HE  A  VENL  T  STA  TE. 

"Here  we  arc  in  a  growing  state,  and  we  only  come  to  the  leaf  or  the 
blossom  at  best:  in  the  other  life  we  come  to  the  fruit."  In  any  an- 
swer to  the  charge  that  he  must  be  wicked,  because  rewards  and  pun- 
ishments were  confined  to  this  life,  we  should  suppose  that  Job,  if  he 
had  known  it,  would  have  said  indignantly,  not  only  that  the  charge 
was  fjilse,  but  that  the  reasoning  upon  which  the  charge  was  based 
was  also  false.  You  could  not  imagine  a  modern  Job.  You  could  not 
imagine  a  man  in  our  day  who  would  rest  under  such  a  charge  as  that. 
Ten  thousand  men  live  in  these  times,  borne  down  by  obloquy,  made 
dark  by  suiFering,  denied  everything  that  life  has  to  make  it  sweet  and 
noble ;  and  yet  you  and  I  revere  them.  Why  ?  "  Ah !"  we  say, 
"  they  bear  sorrow  and  suffering  for  virtue's  sake  ;  and  their  corona- 
tion shall  come  hereaftei-."  But  Job's  future  is  black.  There  is  not  a 
single  luminous  point  in  that  direction  in  the  whole  book  of  Job.  And 
the  Old  Testament  economy,  while  its  saints  did  unquestionably  recog- 
nize, individually,  for  themselves,  the  truth  of  continued  existence  after 
death,  and  had  some  vague  notion  of  virtue,  never  took  that  great 
truth  up  into  itself  as  a  part  of  its  doctrine,  and  never  wi'ought  it  into 
its  theology,  and  never  made  it  a  canon  or  a  motive  from  beginning 
to  end. 

A  great  many  men  ask  whether  a  man  can  be  a  Universalist,  and 
be  a  Christian.  Let  them  first  ask  the  question,  "  How  could  it  be  that 
God  should  ordain  an  economy  in  which  the  doctrine  of  future  rewards 
and  punishments  was  never  once  taught  V 

This  reply  of  our  Saviour,  I  repeat,  is  remarkable  in  what  it  says, 
and  it  is  remarkable,  also,  in  what  it  leaves  unsaid.  That  will  be  un- 
folded in  the  progress  of  this  discourse.  For  I  proceed,  after  these 
prefatory  remarks,  to  speak  of  the  general  method  of  Christ  and  his 
disciples,  in  the'  new  dispensation,  of  teaching  us  concerning  the  great 
future.  What  was  the  method  of  instruction  adopted  by  Christ  and  his 
disciples,  in  regard  to  those  principles  that  in  his  hands  first  came  into 
authoritative  disclosure,  and  were  taught  as  positive  truth  ? 

1.  They  did  not  undertake  to  teach  specifically  or  philosophically 
or  physiologically,  respecting  the  heavenly  state.  There  is  no  at- 
tempt in  the  New  Testament  to  determine  whether  heaven  is  a  con- 
dition or  a  place.  That  is  left  for  our  modern  speculation.  There  is 
nothing  taught  in  the  Old  Testament  history  with  regard  to  the  rela- 
tions of  this  condition  or  place  to  the  universe, — nothing  specific ;  noth- 
ino-  definite ;  nothing  that  enlightens  us  in  regard  to  the  New  Jeru- 
salem ;  nothing  which  answers  to  the  instruction  given  later,in  respect 
to  the  promised  land  to  which  we  are  going. 

Christ  and  the  apostles  did  not  unfold  the  internal  economy  of  the 
heavenly  state.     There  is  no  account  given  of  its  materials,  of  its  econ- 


THE  HEAVENLY  STATE.  79 

oniies,  of  its  occupations,  of  its  goyernment,  and  of  the  real,  un- 
figurative  flow  of  the  experience  of  those  that  are  there.  You  may 
misunderstand  the  statement  as  I  now  give  it,  but  you  will  not  when 
I  shall  have  done  with  it. 

A  thousand  questions,  therefore,  are  not  answered,  which  thousands 
of  not  unnaturally  inquisitive  spirits   now  ask  respecting  the  heavenly 
state.     What  changes  will  pass  upon  our  own  nature  ? — this  is  an  in- 
quiry which  many  would  fain  have  solved.      Instructed  more  in  psy- 
chology, we  reason  more  than  theancicntsinrespectto  that  which  re- 
litcs  to  ourselves.    We  have  more  knowledge  to  base  reasoning  upon. 
What  will  be  the  eflTect  of  death  upon  these  minds  ?     Are  we  to  go  into 
the  heavenly  state  in  these   bodies  ?     Paul  declares  expressly.  No. 
"  Flesh  and  blood  shall  not  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God."  According  to 
his  declaration,  there  shall  be  a  form  which  corresponds  to  these  bodies, 
though  it  shall  not  be  these  bodies.     And  how  one  can  believe  in  the 
absolute  resurrection  of  a  physical  body,  I  cannot  understand,  when  the 
apostle  bars  all  such  ideas  as  that,  by  explicitly  declaring  that  there 
shall  be  no  flesh  and  blood  in  the  kingdom  of  God.     Take  all  my  flesh 
and  blood  away,  and  I  think  there  would  be  very  little  of  me  left  for 
heaven.     And  that  phrase  was  meant,  unquestionably,  to  exclude  phy- 
sical matter.     But  what  shall  be  the  bodies  that  are  to  be  like  our 
present  bodies,  but  shall  not  be  these  bodies  ?    You  know  as  well  as  I, 
or  anybody  else,  that  has  not  been  taught. 

If  one  has  sent  from  his  arms  an  infant  child,  do  not  you  suppose  he 
has  followed  that  child  with  mpiads  of  thoughts  ?  How  will  it  find  its 
way  there?  WUl  the  angels  know  it  and  take  care  of  it?  Will  it  be 
an  infant  when  it  reaches  heaven  ?  Will  it  grow  as  it  would  have 
grown  if  it  had  remained  upon  the  earth  ?  What  is  the  history  of 
children  that  go  to  heaven  ?  There  is  not  a  line  that  throws  any  light 
upon  these  questions  in  the  New  Testament. 

Will  friendships  continue  there  ?  There  are  intimations,  I  do  not 
doubt.  I  do  not  doubt  that  there  are  a  great  many  things  bearing 
upon  this  subject  which  are  taught  in  the  New  Testament,  as  I  shall 
show  you  by  and  by.  But  there  is  not  one  single  line  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament which  explicitly  states  any  thing  about  it. 

What  will  be  our  employments  in  the  heavenly  land?  Nothing  is 
said  about  it.  For,  surely,  we  do  not  suppose  that  the  figures  of  the 
Apocalypse,  some  of  which  I  read  this  morning  in  your  hearing,  were 
meant  to  represent  the  absolute  employment  of  the  redeemed,  and  that 
we  are  to  be  set  up  in  ranks,  and  at  stated  times  make  bows,  and  all 
the  rest  of  the  time  sing.  A  man  must  have  gone  crazy  upon  sym- 
bolism to  suppose  anything  like  that.  The  employments  of  the  heav- 
enly state  are  not  revealed  to  us.    In  short,  the  questions  raised  here  in 


80  THE  SEA  YENL Y  STA  TB. 

regard  to  our  future  condition  are  answered  mostly  thus,  "  Ye  do  not 
understand  the  power  of  God,  and  the  scriptures,  in  regard  to  the  re- 
siuTection."  St.  Jolm,  the  very  one  who  wrote  the  Apocalypse,  with 
all  its  magnificent  figures,  after  declaring  in  flaming  zeal,  "  We  are  the 
sons  of  God,"  said,  "It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be."  St 
Paul,  in  speaking  of  that  very  thing,  said,  "  Xow  we  see  through  a 
glass  darkly,  but  then" — then  only — "  face  to  face."  And  in  the  Apo- 
calypse, where  some  figm-es  most  touching,  because  drawn  from  the 
very  depth  of  human  experience,  are  employed,  it  is  said,  "  God  shall 
wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes ;  and  there  shall  be  no  more  death, 
neither  sorrow,  nor  ciying,  neither  shall  there  be  any  more  pain  ;  for 
the  former  things  are  passed  away."     Great  change! 

So  you  will  see — and  you  will  see  a  gi-eat  deal  more  specially  than  I 
can  make  it  appear  by  this  brief  representation,  if  you  will  follow  up 
your  researches — that  it  is  not  the  method  of  Christ  or  his  disciples  to 
give  what  may  be  considered  philosophical  or  physiological  knowledge 
covering  the  whole  ground  of  the  nature  of  heaven,  or  the  nature  of 
our  occupations  and  conditions  when  we  shall  reach  it. 

2.  We  are  not,  however,  to  suppose  that  the  heavenly  existence  is 
practically  annihilated,  and  all  comfort  taken  from  the  belief  of  it,  be- 
cause it  is  left  vague.  On  the  contraiy  (not  to  insist,  as  by  and  by  I 
shall  more  particulai'ly,  upon  the  fact  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  un- 
derstand these  things  till  we  reach  a  different  point  of  unfolding)  I 
aflirm  that  the  methods  by  which  these  great  truths  and  realities  are 
actually  taught,  are  better  adapted  to  promote  effort,  and  zeal,  and  en- 
dm'ance  than  they  ever  would  have  been  if  laid  open,  analyzed  and 
set  forth  in  specific  form,  with  reference  to  details  and  principles.  For 
they  are  now  addressed  to  our  imagination. 

Is  that,  do  you  say,  more  unsatisfying  ?  N'ay,  it  is  the  way  in  which 
children  learn  all  things  that  are  above  them.  For  the  imagination  is 
the  very  door  through  which  the  child  sees,  before  it  emerges  from 
childhood,  the  things  which  are  beyond  it.  It  is  the  very  way  in 
which  common,  ignorant  people  help  themselves,  where  they  have  no 
science,  and  no  special  knowledge. 

I  have  sat  on  the  summit  of  Mount  Holyoke,  and  looked  out  over 
the  Connecticut  Valley,  and  seen  as  entrancing  views  as  ever  comforted 
the  heart  of  man,  poet  though  he  might  be;  and  yet,  if  you  had 
asked  me,  "  "What  is  in  that  field  ?"  I  could  not  have  told  you  whether 
it  was  wheat,  or  rj-e,  or  grass,  or  corn.  If  you  had  asked  me  "  What 
is  that  village  f  I  could  not  have  told  you.  I  could  just  see  a  white 
glimmer  among  the  green  trees,  but  that  was  all.  If  you  had  asked 
me,  "Who  are  those  men  working  yonder?"  or  "What  are  they 
doinof  t"  I  could  not  have  told  vou.     I  could  see  men  that  seemed  to  be 


TEE  HE  A  VENL  Y  8TA  TE.  8 1 

about  tlie  size  of  ants  crawling  over  the  surface  of  the  gi'ound ;  but 
whether  they  were  mowing,  or  hoeing,  or  walking,  or  running,  I  could 
not  tell.  The  whole  picture  lay  before  me,  magnificent,  and  quickened 
every  spring  of  fancy,  and  comforted  my  heart ;  but  I  could  not  give 
much  idea  of  its  horticulture,  or  agricultm-e,  or  anything  that  went  to 
make  up  the  interior  of  its  life. 

A  young  man  goes  abroad,  and  finds  in  retirement  the  child  of  a 
noble  mother,  thoughtful,  patient,  gentle,  true,  most  loving ;  with  a 
nature  which  interprets  all  things  ;  without  much  schooling,  and  yet 
wise ;  and  he  wins  her ;  and  she,  a  maid  from  the  village,  is  to  be  car- 
ried home  to  his  father's  mansion — for  he  is  a  child  of  wealth,  and  lives 
afar  off.  She  wonders,  from  day  to  day,  as  they  travel,  what  that  home 
shall  be,  until  at  last  they  draw  near  to  it,  and,  leaving  the  cars,  and 
taking  other  conveyance,  they  come  in  sight  of  the  residence  of  his 
lather.  And  on  some  fortunate  hill-top,  he  stops  and  says,  "  Do  you 
see,  westering,  just  in  front  ©f  that  swell  and  roll  of  the  forest,  in  the 
midst  of  those  orchards  and  gardens,  that  white  gleam  ?  Do  you  see 
the  gable  which  rises  between  those  two  trees,  which  the  sun  strikes, 
and  from  which  the  reflection  comes  so  magnificently  ?  That  is  my 
father's  house."  "With  those  words,  what  a  sense  of  its  beauty,  what  a 
sense  of  its  richness,  what  a  thrill  of  delight,  goes  through  her  heart ! 
Yet  she  has  seen  neither  the  mother,  nor  brother,  nor  sister ;  but  all 
images  are  brewing  in  her  mind.  She  sees  a  thousand  things.  When 
she  goes  there  she  will  not  see  so  many  things  with  her  eyes  as  now  she 
sees  by  her  imagination.  She  creates  them.  She  fills  the  house.  She  fills 
the  garden.  She  Avalks  in  thought  through  those  cool  arbored  groves. 
She  sees  and  multiplies  the  treasures  of  her  future  home.  But  when 
she  gets  there  her  visions  must  change.  She  probably  will  not  have 
seen  one  thing  right.  Nevertheless,  she  will  not  be  discontented  nor 
disappointed.  For  the  state  in  which  she  was,  the  imagination  was 
abundantly  sufficient ;  and  when  she  got  to  the  thing  itself,  the  im- 
ages which  she  had  formed  would  not  conflict  one  single  particle 
with  the  realities. 

Now,  we  are  here  as  children,  not  competent  to  understand  the 
things  which  lie  in  another  life,  beyond  the  reach  of  our  experience. 
Therefore,  all  the  instruction  which  is  given  to  us  on  this  subject  is 
given  to  the  reason  through  the  imagination.  All  the  instruction  of 
the  New  Testament  is  given  to  us  upon  that  method.  It  is  the  truth 
of  God  addressed  to  our  hearts,  I  should  say,  through  our  imagination, 
rather  than  through  reason.  As  long  as  we  are  in  this  world  our  heaven 
will  be  imaginary.  We  can  have  no  other  here.  There  is  a  real  heaven 
which  is  better  than  we  imagine — which  is  larger,  nobler,  brighter, 
more  blessed  in  every  part ;  nevertheless,  that  heaven  which  you,  and 


82  THE  SEA  VENLT  8TA TE. 

I,  and  every  saint  on  earth,  think  of,  is  purely  imnginary.  It  is  a  pic- 
ture which  each  one  of  us  has  drawn. 

I  repeat,  that  heaven  is  a  revelation  to  a  man's  heart  through  his 
imagination — not  through  his  sensuous  reason.  In  other  words,  that 
principle  by  which  God  refines  the  world;  that  faculty,  and  that  group 
of  faculties,  by  which  civilization  has  always  made  progress — namely, 
the  imagination— is  the  gate  and  door  between  the  flesh,  matter,  phy- 
sics, on  the  one  side,  and  spirit  on  the  other. 

The  imagination,  I  think,  is  the  angel  of  resurrection  to  the  soul  in 
the  process  of  development.  It  is  through  the  imagination  that  men 
learn  to  sublime  matter  into  invisible  forms,  and  fashion  things  not  seen 
into  things  that  are  as  if  they  were  seen.  It  is  by  the  imagination  that 
one  conceives  of  something  better  in  every  act  than  the  thing  itself; 
so  that  he  is  able  to  idealize  moral  excellences,  so  that  they  grow 
larger  and  larger  in  his  conception.  It  is  the  refining  element,  the 
interpreting  element,  the  inspiring  element,  that  gives  to  every  man  as- 
piration. Because  the  imagination  is  not  a  measuring  quality,  because 
it  is  not  a  mathematical  quality,  because  it  has  not  exactitude,  men  des- 
pise it ;  and  we  are  taught  that  it  is  fanciful,  and  that  it  is  not  safe  to 
build  on  it.  But  I  aver  that  in  the  economy  of  God's  providence  the 
human  race  has  been  instructed  more  through  the  imagination  than 
through  the  reason.  And  it  will  be  so  to  the  end.-  And  I  aver  that  in 
respect  to  a  range  of  topics  that  is  more  important  to  us  than  any  other, 
it  is  the  only  teaching  through  which  we  can  be  instructed.  It  is  not 
by  statistics,  but  by  the  imagination,  with  pictures  forever  globing  into 
new  forms  of  beauty,  forever  changing,  never  twice  alike,  and  yet 
always  doing  the  one  work — invigorating,  inspiring,  translating  men 
higher  and  higher — that  God  teaches  us  things  which  we  cannot  reach 
tlirough  our  experience,  or  otherwise  know  anything  about. 

This  gives  us  the  key  to  the  scriptural  teachings  in  i-egard  to  the 
future.  They  are  addressed,  as  I  have  said,  a  little  to  the  reason,  but 
n::ostly  to  the  heart,  to  the  affections,  through  the  imagination.  The 
judgment  scenes  which  are  dramatically  set  forth  in  the  Gospels  are 
designed  to  be  symbolic.  I  do  not  mean  that  they  are  pretences.  I 
merely  mean  that  the  judgment  itself,  which  I  believe  will  take  place, 
will  not  take  place  literally  and  absolutely  just  as  it  is  stated.  Tlie 
statement  is  a  pictorial  representation ;  but  that  pictorial  representation 
was  designed  (and  it  has  always  answered  that  design)  to  raise  up  the 
conception  of  a  transcendent  finality  in  which  justice  and  injustice,  i-ight 
and  wi'ong,  should  part  company,  and  take  respectively  their  own 
spheres.  The  scene  itself  is  pictorially  represented.  Not  that  these 
very  things  will  happen;  but  that  a  scene  will  appenr  which  those 
symbolize,  and  which  the  imagination  must  enlarge  and  fill  up,  r.:ul 
vary  as  well. 


St& 


TEE  HE  A  VENL  Y  STATE.  83 

This  is  speciully  true  in  i-espect  to  the  conditions  of  heaven  and  hell, 
as  they  are  set  forth  in  the  Bible.  Neither  of  them  is  to  be  interpreted 
according  to  its  figures  literally.  We  are  not  to  suppose  that  there  is  a 
place  of  literal  fire  and  brimstone.  I  do  not  believe  it ;  you  do  not  be- 
lieve it ;  and  we  ought  not  to  believe  it,  any  more  than  we  believe  that 
heaven  is  paved  with  golden  paving  stones.  Nobody  believes  that  lit- 
erally. If  men  did  believe  it  there  would  be  more  misers  anxious  for 
then-  souls'  salvation !  Heaven  and  hell  are  represented  by  such  figures, 
not  because  they  are  literal  representations,  but  because  they  are  the 
things  which  will  have  most  potential  influence  on  the  imagination. 
That  is  the  key-note  of  Scripture  teaching.  No  statistical  methods 
are  employed,  but  those  methods  which  address  themselves  to  man's 
creative  faculties — to  his  fancy. 

Let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  heaven  as  we  find  it  described  in  the 
Bible.  Let  us  see  what  the  method  is  by  which  it  is  set  forth  to  us. 
In  general,  we  are  taught  that  man  continues  to  exist  hereafter,  and  that 
the  good  exist  in  a  state  of  happiness,  and  that  that  place  or  condition 
is  called  heaven.  But  how  much  do  we  know  about  it,  literally  and 
technically?  What  do  we  know  of  its  geography,  its  history,  its  phi- 
lology, its  industry,  or  its  economic  relations  ?  How  little  we  know ! 
and  yet  how  much  we  know !  How  large  a  space  it  occupies  in  our 
thoughts  and  feelings !  and  how  much  more  power  has  it  than  this  great 
globe  on  which  we  tread,  if  we  are  alert  in  our  moral  nature  !  All  the 
figures  which  have  power  upon  the  human  imagination  have  been 
sorted,  as  it  were,  have  been  selected,  and  have  been,  in  one  way  or 
another,  employed  in  the  New  Testament  to  describe  heaven.  The 
thing  itself  is  indescribable.  We  have  no  faculty  nor  means,  by  which 
to  ui>derstand  it.  If  the  actual  thing  were  stated  to  us,  it  would  be  as 
though  it  were  not  stated,  because  we  cannot  comprehend  it ;  on  the 
same  principle  by,  which  I  explain  to  my  little  three  or  four  year 
old  child  the  process  of  an  eclipse.  If  I  were  to  say  to  him,  "  Oh,  the 
moon  was  going  out  one  night,  and  it  saw  the  sun,  and  it  wanted  to 
be  roguish,  and  so  it  ran  right  before  the  sun,  and  threw  the  shadow  of 
itself — a  big  cloak — all  over  the  sun,  and  the  sun  did  not  like  it  a  bit, 
and  the  moon  laughed  and  ran  on,"  the  child  would  have  some  con- 
ception of  an  eclipse,  although  the  figure  shows  two  roguish  persons, 
one  throwing  his  shadow  over  the  other.  But  suppose,  instead  of  that, 
I  should  make  an  exact  calculation  of  the  causes  of  the  eclipse, 
and  should  show  the  figures  to  the  child?  In  this  case  I  should 
peifectly  confound  him  by  the  truth ;  and  in  the  other  case  I  should 
enlighten  him  by  fiction.  A  fiction  is  oftentimes  nearer  the  truth 
than  the  truth  itself — not  absolutely,  but  relatively  to  the  day  and  con- 
dition in  which  we  arc  living.     And  there  is  no  book  in  the  world  that 


84  TEE  HE  A  VENLY  8TA  TE. 

ever  employed  partial  things,  and  fables,  and  parables,  and  make-be- 
lieve truths,  and  beautiful  stories  wrought  out  of  fancy,  so  much  as  the 
Bible — that  very  book  which  has  fashioned  so  many  good  men  who  are 
afraid  to  read  a  novel.  It  is  full  from  beginning  to  end  of  fiction  for 
the  sake  of  fact,  because,  in  the  relatively  undeveloped  state  of  the  hu- 
man mind,  it  is  true  that  fiction  oftentimes  brings  a  man  nearer  to  the 
truth,  because  it  assimilates  to  something  that  he  knew  before,  and 
always  leads  from  that  something  which  he  knew  before  to  something 
to  be  known ;  and  it  is  the  shadow  of  what  you  do  know  that  throws 
its  interpretation  over  to  what  you  do  not  know. 

All  the  experiences  which  the  human  race  has  evolved  of  power, 
of  joy,  of  happiness,  and  of  purity,  are  employed  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, like  so  many  pigments,  to  make  the  great  pictm-e  of  the  heavenly 
state.  All  that  men  have  learned  to  estimate  in  riches  is  gathered  up, 
and  all  the  splendor  that  there  is  in  art  is  employed,  to  throw  light 
upon  the  heavenly  state.  All  that  there  is  that  is  impressive  to  the 
imagination  of  men,  and  august  in  courts  and  crowns  and  sceptres — 
in  short,  all  that  there  is  in  royalty ;  all  the  glory  that  there  is  in  war- 
riors, whether  suffering  or  victorious,  will  be  found  in  the  list  of  the 
fi<Tures  that  represent  the  heavenly  state.  All  the  cheer  of  music  goes 
up  there.  All  the  raptures  of  love  report  themselves  there.  All  the 
beauty  of  trees  and  of  gardens ;  all  that  there  is  in  rivers  and  moun- 
tains ;  whatever  there  is  in  the  city  or  in  the  country  ;  nature  itself — 
all  these  will  be  found  first  or  last  to  represent  the  heavenly  state. 
All  elements  of  wonder  produced  upon  the  mind  by  the  supernatural 
are  got  together  to  throw  their  train  of  lights  and  shadows  upon  the 
great  vague  Hereafter.  Thus  the  heavenly  state  is  represented  to  us 
by  taking,  as  it  were,  all  the  elements  that  men  have  learned  to  esteem 
as  indicative  of  power,  and  grandeur,  and  glory,  and  purity,  and  then 
making  a  heaven  out  of  them.  • 

Bring  me,  if  you  please,  one  of  Titian's  most  magnificent  pictures — 
the  Martyrdom,  or  the  Assumption,  or  any  of  those  master-pieces  on 
which  his  fame  stands.  I  look  at  it,  and  say  to  my  companion,  "  What 
is  that?"  "That,"  he  says,  "is  the  Virgin."  "What  is  that  deepest 
and  most  glowing  of  reds  ?"  "That  is  her  gorgeous  robe."  "What 
is  that  exquisite  blue,  further  up,  on  her  shoulders  ?"  "  That  is  her 
scarf."  "  What  is  that  green  that  I  see  behind  her?"  "  That  is  a  tree 
with  leaves  on  it."  "  What  is  it  that  I  see  through  the  tree  ?"  "  That 
is  the  sky."  No,  it  is  not.  I  go  up  to  the  picture  and  scrape  it, 
and  that  red  is  nothing  but  pigment ;  and  that  blue  is  nothing  but  a 
little  metal  and  oil.  There  is  no  robe  and  no  scarf  there  at  all.  I  scrape 
off  one  of  those  leaves,  and  there  is  no  juice  in  it.  It  is  metal  and 
oil,  and  that  is  all.    And  that  sky — you  can  pinch  it,  and  scratch  it,  and 


THE  HE  A  VENL  Y  STATE.  85 

crumble  it  in  your  hand.  It  is  all  dirt — nothing  but  dirt.  And  yet,  out 
of  these  base  substances,  by  the  cunning  hand  and  imagination  of  the 
artist,  is  wrought  a  picture  such  that,  when  you  look  upon  it,  you  never 
will  think  of  what  it  is  made  up  of — you  will  not  see  the  pigment,  nor 
the  metal,  nor  the  oil.  These  things,  to  the  looker  on,  are  garment,  are 
face,  are  flesh.  They  seem  to  be  a  living  being  clothed  in  beautiful  gar- 
mei)ts,  though  in  reality  they  are  but  dead  matter. 

All  the  world  is  a  vast  pallet,  and  all  human  experiences  are  so  many 
pigments,  and  the  method  of  teaching  which  God  pursues,  in  the  New 
Testament,  is  that  he,  as  the  sublime  Artist,  takes  this  pallet  of  uni- 
versal experience  and  draws  in  gorgeous  colors  the  lines  and  lineaments 
of  the  heavenly  state.  And  the  things  which  he  uses  are  all  eailhly, 
and  are  not  to  be  reproduced  in  heaven,  though  the  things  which  they 
represent  to  us  are  heavenly.  The  materials  out  of  which  our  concep- 
tions spring  are  earthly  experiences ;  but  the  efiect  of  the  conceptions, 
when  combined  with  the  SjDirit  of  God  upon  the  imagination  of  man, 
is  to  reveal  to  him,  and  bring  him  into  sympathy  with,  the  invisible  and 
spiritual  life,  as  it  could  be  done  by  no  philosophical  j^rocess.  He  who 
knows  aught  of  heaven,  therefore,  knows  it  altogether  through  the 
experience  and  interpretation  of  his  imagination. 

In  general,  it  may  be  said  that  by  these  methods  of  great  and  won- 
drous truth  wliich  we  learn  in  regard  to  heaven,  is  set  forth  the  sweet 
and  beautiful  nature  of  God,  whom  some  have  worshipped  as  a  devil, 
some  as  a  terrific  thunderer,  some  as  a  bloody  hei'o,  and  some  as  an 
august  and  terrible  emblem  of  justice,  crushing  unmercifully.  At  last 
we  see  God  enshrined  in  the  midst  of  joy,  and  purity,  and  transcen- 
dent bliss.  lie  himself  gives  the  light.  There  is  no  need  of  the  sun. 
There  is  no  need  of  the  moon.  All  natural  laws  may  cease,  because 
their  Prototype  is  there.  And  as  the  earth  itself  is  but  the  expression 
of  divine  thought,  and  its  life  is  but  the  expression  of  the  divine  law, 
so  when  we  rise  above  it  altogether  into  the  heavenly  state,  we  shall 
find  that  God  is  nature ;  and  that  all  things  are  in  him ;  and  that  nature 
is  perpetual  summer,  perpetual  garden,  perpetual  feast,  perpetual  joy, 
perpetual  bliss,  and  benediction  forever  and  forever.  That  truth  we 
have  learned.  But  how  ?  By  making  it  up  out  of  all  these  scattered 
images.  We  come  to  that  conception  of  God  through  these  varied  ex- 
periences. It  is  in  this  way  that  we  learn  the  blessedness  of  manhood. 
For  the  representation  of  heaven  is  not  that  you  are  going  to  be  happy. 
You  that  are  sucking  out  happiness  in  this  world  ;  you  paupers  that  are 
running  after  happiness, like  a  beggar  with  his  hat,  for  a  dole;  you  in 
youth  that  are  running  after  happiness  ;  you  that  in  middle  age  are  run- 
ning after  happiness,  heaven  is  not  meant  to  complete  that  fantasy,  and 
leave  you  to  feel  that  you  are  just  to  be  happy.     Heaven  teaches  you 


8  6  THE  HE  A  VENL  Y  STA  TE. 

that  when  manhood  has  been  perfected  by  endurance  and  suffering, 
when  it  has  been  washed  by  tears  and  blood,  and  is  redeemed  and 
brought  into  its  true  estate,  then  it  is  blessed,  as  God  is  blessed.  Heaven 
is  the  place  where  God  is  revealed  in  the  plenitude  of  his  power  and 
glory,  and  where  true  manhood  is  interpreted  to  us  in  its  glory. 

It  is  further  revealed  (and  the  revelation  is  cautionary,  as  it  were) 
that  the  heavenly  land  is  one  in  which  former  things  shall  have  passed 
away  ;  in  which  the  peculiar  besetments  and  trials  and  incidental  rela- 
tions that  shall  have  existed  in  this  world  will  have  disappeared. 

We  have  a  new  state,  a  new  life,  a  new  chance.  The  particulars  we 
do  not  know.  What  we  do  know  is  that  it  will  be  intensely  active, 
and  transcendently  satisfying.  And  this  knowledge  ought  to  be  a  sat- 
isfaction in  this  life. 

So  much  is  the  substance  of  that  which  is  taught  of  the  heavenly 
state.  I  might  make  it  rich  by  endless  combinations  and  specifications  ; 
but  this  is  the  general  ground.  It  covers  the  revelation  of  the  nature 
of  God,  and  the  revelation  of  the  coming  nature  of  man,  and  the  reve- 
lation of  the  effacement  of  all  the  things  with  which  we  are  most  sadly 
acquainted  in  this  world,  and  the  substitution  of  the  things  which  are 
the  most  rapturous  and  joyous  in  the  world  to  come. 

3.  From  this  structural  view,  we  may  derive  an  idea  of  th,e  uses  to 
which  we  can  put  heaven,  and  also  of  the  uses  to  which  we  can  put 
the  word  of  God.  What  a  fantastic  history  is  that  of  the  interpretation 
of  the  enigmatical  books  of  the  Bible  ?  And  what  a  strange  literature 
there  is  afloat — I  beg  pardon,  literature  which  will  not  float,  but  whose 
intrinsic  gravity  carries  it  to  the  bottom  in  every  age !  One  would 
think,  to  hear  some  persons  interpret  Daniel,  and  the  symbols  contained 
in  that  book  ;  one  would  think,  to  hear  some  men  preach  on  these  pro- 
phetic symbols  and  interpretations,  "  I  do  not  know  that  I  shall  be  able 
to  see,  or  hear,  or  eat,  or  drink  naturally.  It  seems  to  me  that  it 
is  a  phantasmagoria  which  fits  a  man  for  a  celestial  lunatic  asylum !" 
Take  the  prophecy  in  respect  to  the  beasts  and  their  horns,  and  their 
tongues,  and  then-  eyes  ;  take  the  various  parts  of  the  Apocalypse,  and 
the  various  accounts  of  fantastic  commentators,  and  see  what  work  has 
been  made  in  attempting  to  reduce  these  pictures  to  physiological  ideas 
and  statistical  facts.  Suppose  a  man  should  undertake  to  reduce  the 
writings  of  John  Milton  to  the  language  of  mathematics,  what  sort  of 
-■^•^iiy  would  he  have?  Suppose  one  should  take  the  productions  of 
^#ais  or  Tennyson  and  interpret  them  into  the  language  of  statistics, 
and  prune  everything  down,  and  bring  everything  within  the  limits  of 
bald,  bare,  barren  facts  ?  Would  there  be  anything  left  of  the  poetry  ? 
Would  you  see  what  the  poet  meant  that  you  should  see  ?  Would  you 
not  be  cheated  and  fooled  ?    What  are  these  prophecies,  these  pictures 


!  TEE  HEAVENLY  STATE.  87 

of  the  Apocalypse  ?  They  are  what  not  long  ago  the  l^orth  star  was 
to  the  poor  fugitive  slave,  who  followed  it,  and  saw  in  it  liberty.  He 
did  not  know  what  the  orb  was.  All  he  knew  was,  that  so  long  as  he 
followed  it  bondage  lay  behind  and  liberty  lay  before.  And  he  prayed, 
"  O  God  !  let  me  never  be  without  this  star."  And  he  followed  it,  and 
found  freedom. 

Now,  the  Apocalypse  is,  so  to  speak,  God's  northern  lights.  All 
the  auroral  glory  of  heaven  seems  to  flash  out  in  these  various  sym- 
bolisms. What  have  I,  to  teach  the  doctrine  of  the  future  state  ?  Not 
the  language  of  philosophical  fact.  But  to  tell  me  that  there  is  a 
heaven,  and  that  it  is  more  glorious  and  transcendent  than  the  heart 
of  man  can  conceive,  is  to  fire  my  imagination,  and  to  fill  it  with  gor- 
geous pictures,  and  to  pervade  it  with  such  an  inflammation  that  it  never 
can  rest,  ci'owning  my  flmcy  more  than  it  awakens  my  reason.  That 
which  gives  reason  its  glory  and  its  beautj'  is  the  imagination.  That 
is  the  most  refining  and  civilizing  faculty,  and  traces  of  it  abound  in 
these  prophetic  books.  And  although  they  are  incidental,  they  may 
reveal,  important  facts  relating  to  the  future,  which  otherwise  would 
remain  obscure.  And  it  was  not  so  much  statistics  that  the  divine 
Spirit  wanted  to  give,  as  it  was  fire  to  the  imagination,  which  should 
awaken  faith  in  God,  in  hope,  in  love,  in  manhood,  while  amid  the 
disturbances  of  this  world — in  the  midst  of  its  groans  and  anguish.  It 
was  necessary  that  there  should  be  somewhere  rejoicings  among  the 
cryings  of  earth.  If  there  were  wadings  in  blood  on  earth,  there 
ought  to  be  somewhere  garments  washed  white  in  blood.  If  there 
were  tears,  there  should  be  somewhere  a  Father  who  took  in  his  ever- 
lasting arms  his  children,  and  wiped  the  tears  from  their  eyes,  and  set 
them  down  everlastingly  where  tears  should  come  no  more. 

But  none  of  these  visions  of  the  coming  glory  are  literal.  There 
are  no  literal  gates  of  pearl.  There  is  no  literal  sea  of  glass.  There 
is  no  literal  pavement  of  gold.  But  ah  !  what  is  a  great  deal  better, 
these  figures  of  the  heavenly  land  come  with  rejoicing  and  real  happi- 
ness ;  and  they  teach  us  of  the  estate  which  we  long  for,  and  look  for- 
ward to.  It  is  not  enough  that  I  get  from  other  sources.  My  man- 
hood will  not  explain  itself  I  shall  not  die  when  I  die ;  and  everything 
in  me  that  is  most  noble — my  reason  and  my  moral  sense — goes,  on 
the  -vvings  of  these  mighty  pictures  of  the  imagination,  triumphing 
over  darkness,  and  saying,  "  Light,  light,  light  for  me  !  Let  those 
go  to  the  bat  lli:;t  will     I  go  to  the  empyrean." 

A  true  use,  then,  of  Scripture,  is  not  to  be  made  by  going  to  ii 
with  a  literal  representation  of  its  symbols,  after  they  have  become  by  , 
use  worn  out.     The  great  trouble  with  symbols  is  that  they  first  help, 
and  tlien  hinder.     When  they  are  new  and  fresh,  they  interpret  new 


88  TEE  HE  A  VENL  T  ST  A  TE. 

ideas  to  us  ;  but  after  they  have  done  it  a  certain  time,  they  cease  to  do 
it,  and  become  objective  themselves,  and  we  see  the  symbol — not 
the  truth.  It  is  quite  possible  for  the  Bible  to  stand  right  in  the  way 
of  the  understanding  of  the  Bible.  If  a  man  comes  to  think  of 
heaven,  not  according  to  this  princij)le  which  I  have  explained,  through 
the  general  interpreting  of  the  spirit  and  state  of  it,  and  he  is  con- 
stantly thinking  about  palms,  and  crowns,  and  harps,  and  harpers,  he 
comes  at  last  to  believe  that  they  are  actually  true.  And  so  he  has 
used  the  Bible  in  such  way  that  it  has  defeated  itself 

A  true  use  of  Scripture,  therefore,  is  to  repeat  its  process, with 
the  materials  which  belong  to  our  age  and  civilization ;  to  do  over 
again  in  our  day,  and  with  the  things  which  are  the  noblest  and  best 
to  us,  just  what  the  seer  did  in  his  day  by  the  things  Avhich  were  best 
to  that  age  of  the  world.  Some  things  will  continue  to  be  best  to  the 
end  of  time.  There  are  some  things  in  the  Apocalypse  that  have  be- 
come glorious,  and  that  are  worthy  of  a  place  on  the  pallet.  But  our 
conceptions  must  have  in  them  fewer  princes.  I  do  not  myself  think  so 
much  of  princes.  Heavenly  princes  may  be.  good,  but  earthly  princes 
do  not  give  me  the  conception  of  heavenly  princes.  When  I  read  of 
crowns,  it  does  not  produce  much  impression  on  my  mind ;  for  I  have 
seen  them.  Neither  is  mucin  impression  produced  on  my  mind  by 
reading  about  thrones  ;  for  I  have  sat  down  in  some  of  them.  I  have 
a  very  poor  idea  of  thrones,  and  a  poorer  idea  yet  of  those  men  that 
press  them.  I  am  a  republican.  God,  by  his  providence,  has  given 
me  a  very  different  conception  of  dignity  and  manhood  from  that 
which  was  held  by  the  oriental  nations.  And  while,  in  a  large  part 
of  the  civilized  world,  crowns  and  princes  are  doing  a  great  deal  of 
real  service  to  you  and  me,  democratic  republicans — or  republican 
democrats  ! — other  figures  must  come  in  to  crutch  up  these  infirm  ones. 
Time  has  riddled  them,  and  let  their  glory  out.  There  are  more  of 
the  common  people  that  want  less  aristocrats,  fewer  jDalaces,  more  cot- 
tages, less  oriental  sensuous  gorgeousness,  more  simple  domesticity, 
less  being  governed, — not  less  government,  but  more  seZ/'-government. 

The  glory  which  God  has  unfolded  of  himself,  the  developments 
of  later  times  to  us,  will  go  further  to  interpret  the  heavenly  state 
than  even  the  antique  figures.  I  hold  that  it  is  the  the  duty  of  Chris- 
tians to  imitate,  not  the  letter,  but  the  spirit,  of  revelation.  As  the 
method  of  revelation  was  to  teach  us  of  the  heavenly  state,  by  appeal- 
ing to  the  imagination,  and  gathering  figures  that  would  represent 
power,  and  purity,  and  excellence  of  every  kind,  so  we  may,  when  we 
wish  to  fashion  a  heaven  for  our  edification,  gather  up  all  the  elements 
which  to  us  are  transcendent,  whether  they  be  scriptural  or  not.  We 
ai'e  not  restricted  in  this  regard.     We  are  at  liberty  to  make  om-  own 


TEE  HE  A  YENL  Y  STATE.  89 

heaven.  The  maidun  has  a  right  to  make  a  heaven  that  will  represent 
to  her  purity,  jjower,  heroism,  goodness  and  grandeur,  in  their  most 
ideal  forms.  And  the  mother  may  construct  her  lieaven  out  of  the 
materials  which  God  has  gathered  about  her  experience.  And  it  is  a 
part  of  the  liberty  of  the  Christian  to  interpret  for  himself  tlie  sliining 
way,  and  the  glorious  city  that  stands  at  the  head  of  it.  And  it  were 
well  for  us  that  we  had  more  fruitfulness,  and  were  not  tied  up  to  an 
eternal  repetition.  "He  that  sticks  at  the  letter  sticks  at  the  bark,"  is 
the  old  Latin  proverb ;  and  I  say  that  he  who  sticks  at  words,  and 
keeps  them,  in  these  Apocalyptic  visions,  not  only  "sticks  at  the  bark," 
but  loses  that  living  principle  by  which  every  man  may  make  a  vision 
which  shall  bring  heaven  nearer  to  him  than  any  other  man's  figure. 

It  may  seem  shocking  for  me  to  say  that,  if  you  please,  you  may, 
instead  of  taking  the  pictures  employed  by  Scripture  to  represent 
heaven,  take  your  own  images  and  figures,  and  make  your  own  heaven ; 
but  you  do  it,  after  all.  When  you  were  young,  your  heaven  was 
purely  scriptural ;  but  it  is  not  so  any  longer.  When  you  think  of 
heaven  now,  the  Mary  that  comes  to  your  mind  is  not  a  Mary  of  the 
Apocalypse,  but  that  darling  Mary  who  first  brought  you  toward 
heaven.  She  went  up  to  the  spirit  land,  and  there  she  shines ;  and 
since  she  has  been  there  heaven  has  had  one  thing  in  it  which  you 
never  read  of  in  the  Bible.  And  after  your  own  old  father,  prophet, 
priest,  lover  and  friend  to  you,  and  the  benefactor  of  all  who  came 
within  his  influence,  went  thither,  you  have  never  thought  of  heaven 
without  pushing  aside  one  of  the  old  symbols,  and  putting  this  new 
one  in  its  place.  Your  daughter  is  there,  and  your  father  is  there ;  and 
your  brother  goes  next,  and  your  sister  next ;  and  the  old  neighbor 
goes,  and  the  dear  matron  goes ;  and  heaven  begins  to  get  full  of  peo- 
ple that  you  have  known  ;  and  pretty  soon  you  will  find  that  you  have 
a  heaven  formed  out  of  your  own  experience,  with  the  aid  of  your 
imagination.  And  yet,  if  I  tell  men  that  this  is  the  thing  to  do ;  if  I  tell 
them  that  they  may  form  then-  own  conception  of  the  heavenly  land, 
not  setting  aside  the  Bible,  but  taking  a  hint  from  it,  and  proceeding 
according  to  its  method,  and  calling  into  action  the  same  moral  quali- 
ties which  it  does,  but  employing  illustrations  and  figures  different  from 
those  which  it  employs,  they  are  sometimes  shocked.  Nevertheless, 
God  makes  their  hearts  wiser  than  their  heads.  That  is  the  case  with 
a  great  many  who  otherwise  would  be  absolute  fools ! 

The  reasons,  then,  of  the  indefiniteness  of  the  teaching  of  the  New 
Testament  become  apparent.  I  suppose  that  one  of  those  reasons  lies 
in  the  absolute  impossibility  of  conveying  a  literal  knowledge  of  heaven 
to  us.  There  must  be  a  pictorial  representation  of  heaven,  or  we  can 
gain  no  conception  of  it     We  are  not  developed ;  we  are  not  expcri- 


90  THE  HE  A  VENL  Y  ST  A  TE. 

enced ;  we  are  far  removed  from  the  highest  condition  of  those  natures 
which  we  bear,  and  we  are  not  prepared  to  see  the  things  which  be- 
long to  the  spirit  life.  We  see  them  as  through  a  glass,  darkly.  Only 
by  and  by  can  we  see  face  to  face,  and  know  just  how  heaven  is. 

The  same  thing  exists  among  ourselves.  For  instance,  the  lower 
classes  in  society  (by  which  I  mean,  not  the  poorer  classes,  but  those 
who  are  less  developed,  the  gross,  the  animal,  and  even  the  vicious  and 
the  corrupt)  cannot  interpret  nor  understand  the  higher  stages  of  so- 
ciety. They  cannot  understand  the  real  condition  of  a  pure  and 
virtuous  and  refined  family.  If  they  give  their  idea  of  it,  you  will  see 
that  they  smouch  it  in  then*  descriptions  by  their  own  vulgar  notions. 
In  other  words,  the  bottom  of  society  never  can  understand  the  top, 
although  the  top  can  understand  clear  down  to  the  bottom.  The  higher 
development  always  judges  that  which  is  below  it.  Though  the  higher 
understanding  always  includes  that  which  is  below  it,  the  lower  never 
includes  that  which  is  above  it.  So  that  we  cannot  interpret  that  which 
is  above  us,  though  that  which  is  above  us  interprets  us. 

But  a  moral  reason  might  be  given  for  this  ; — that  if  it  were  pos- 
sible for  men  to  understand  the  blessedness  of  the  state  that  is  to  come, 
it  might  be  a  snare.  It  might  enervate  and  invalidate  the  motives  to  vir- 
tue in  this  life.  We  are  here  to  grow.  We  are  here  to  learn.  We  are  here 
to  sufier.  We  are  here  to  be  wrought  upon,  and  wrought  in,  and  wrought 
out;  and  life  is  a  growing  place,  a  studying  place,  a  suifering  place.  What- 
ever happens,  you  can  be  clean  of  lip  and  pure  of  heart.  But  after 
all,  you  are  strangers  and  pilgrims.  You  are  seeking  for  yourselves ; 
but  you  will  never  find  yourselves  this  side  of  the  grave.  No  man 
lives  here.  We  are  only  sojourners  in  this  sphere.  Our  life  is  not  per- 
fected here.  It  is  the  ideal  of  honor,  and  truth,  and  purity,  and  fidel- 
ity, and  love,  that  man  should  die  fruitful  and  abundant  as  is  the 
tree  of  life.  It  is  the  ideal  of  our  higher  selves — that  is,  om-  real 
selves.  For,  after  all,  that  which  we  sleep  with,  and  eat  with,  and  walk 
with,  and  commune  with,  is  not  our  true  self.  We  are  masked  and 
hidden  and  imprisoned  in  the  flesh.     Our  true  self  is  coming  hereafter. 

That  being  the  case,  it  were  not  wise  that  the  heavenly  state  should 
be  revealed  to  men.  It  were  not  wise  that  those  things  should  be  appa- 
rent, whicli,  only  foreshadowed,  exei'cise  the  reason  and  tlie  imagina- 
tion. The  true  meaning  of  heaven  to  us  is  the  certainty  of  general  bless- 
edness. For  instance,  "  There  remaineth  a  rest  for  the  people  of  God." 
It  is  a  certainty  of  satisfaction  in  the  divine  government  and  in  the  di- 
vine nature.  We  shall  be  satisfied  when  we  seeHim  as  he  is.  It  is  our 
refuge  from  sorrow.  It  is  our  great  comfort  and  consolation,  forecast- 
ing in  this  world.  Above  all,  it  is  that  which  settles  the  endless  ine- 
qualities of  experience  in  this  life.      It  is  sure,  and  it  is  the  only  sure 


THE  HE  A  7ENLY  8TA  TE.  9 1 

thing.  All  things  which  are  physical,  and  which  men  call  substantial, 
are  passing  away.  The  things  that  are  seen  are  transient,  and  the 
things  that  are  unseen,  and  only  those,  are  permanent.  No  great  na- 
ture has  ever  lived  through  life  and  not  felt  that  this  world  was  insuf- 
ficient for  him.  The  world  is  big  enough,  and  good  enough,  and 
rich  enough  for  childi-en  till  they  have  reached  a  certain  estate ;  but  the 
moment  they  begin  to  enter  upon  manhood,  they  are  conscious  of  a  de- 
su-e  for  what  are  called  romances  and  visions  that  the  world  will  never 
satisfy.  And  the  longer  they  live,  the  less  they  will  be  satisfied ;  and 
the  probability  is  that  they  will  grow  misanthropic.  Now  the  wine  has 
turned  to  vinegar  in  a  man  when  he  becomes  a  misanthi'ope.  And  the 
next  step  is  putrid  fermentation,  in  wine  or  in  men.  And  yet,  every 
man  is  conscious  that  the  more  he  knows  men,  the  more  he  pities  them ; 
the  more  sorry  he  is  for  them  ;  and  the  more  charitable  toward  them. 
But,  after  all,  consider  what  is  the  real  condition  of  man,  and  of  the 
human  mind.  All  honors,  one  after  another,  are  not  less  than  honors ; 
all  pleasures,  one  after  another,  are  not  less  than  pleasures ;  but  they 
do  not  go  down  into  the  deep  places  of  human  desii'e.  And  all  these 
things  are  not  sufficient  to  feed  him  when  the  growth  of  manhood 
brings  hunger  in  his  nobler  nature. 

It  is  necessary  that  we  should  stay  ourselves  with  this  faith :  that 
there  is  a  land  where  om-  whole  heart  shall  be  filled  to  ovei*flowing,  for- 
ever and  forever ;  and  that  that  land  is  heaven.  You  may  fret,  other- 
wise. You  may  find  fault  with  the  conditions  of  this  life.  Travelers 
find  fault  with  taverns,  and  with  railway  carriages,  and  with  stages, 
and  with  wagons  ;  but  they  are  foolish ;  for  they  are  not  going  to  live 
in  them. 

When  I  go  to  Europe  I  find  fault  with  the  ship,  with  the  engine, 
and  with  the  everlasting  ocean  ;  but  then  what  do  I  do  ?  I  lie  down  on 
my  back,  and  charge  ten  days  to  profit  and  loss,  and  wipe  them  out, 
and  that  is  the  end  of  it.  But  I  know  that  when  I  get  there  I  shall  be 
paid  a  thousand  times  over  for  all  I  have  sufiered. 

When  a  man  is  on  the  sea,  and  is  sea-sick,  he  says,  "  I  would  not 
go  through  this  another  day  for  ten  thousand  continents,  if  I  could 
help  it ;"  but  when  he  reaches  land  and  sees  one  thing  that  is  worth 
seeing,  he  says,  "  I  would  go  ten  voyages  for  the  sake  of  seeing  this." 
It  is  not  wise  for  a  man  to  put  too  much  emphasis  upon  the  incidental 
experiences  of  life. 

Servants  and  landlords  say  that  they  can  always  tell  how  a  man 
lives  at  home  by  the  way  he  conducts  himself  abroad.  If  he  finds  fault 
with  his  food,  they  say,  "  It  is  because  he  has  not  good  food  at  home  " ; 
and  if  he  eats  his  food  contentedly,  "It  is  because  he  lives  well  at  home". 
It  means  this,  that  a  man  who  is  used  to  good  things,  and  knows  that 


9  2  THU  HE  A  VENLT  8TA  TE. 

he  sliall  have  them  again,  says,  "What  is  the  use  of  my  finding  fault 
with  that  which  is  disagreeable  on  the  way.  It  is  only  for  a  moment. 
I  shall  go  right  back  to  everything  that  I  need."  And  so  he  is  a 
gentleman.  A  man  that  finds  fault  is  not.  And  on  the  way  heaven- 
ward, if  you  find  fault  with  your  house,  and  with  your  position  in 
society,  and  with  the  table  which  God  spreads  for  you,  you  are  no 
gentleman.  But  if  you  are  well  bred,  you  are  sons  of  God ;  and  by 
this  token  it  shall  be  known  that  you  have,  and  you  may  be  certain 
that  you  have,  a  Father's  house,  where  you  shall  have  experiences  that 
will  remove  all  these  little  inequalities.  "  This  dust,  this  heaving  ship, 
this  sickness,"  you  say,  "  is  but  for  a  moment ;  and  why  should  I 
complain?  It  is  but  a  mere  speck,  and  not  worthy  of  a  thought. 
Mine  is  eternity ;  mine  is  heaven  ;  mine  is  God." 

So,  too,  not  only  is  there  comfoi-t  for  the  breaking  up  of  our  relation- 
ships on  earth  by  death,  but  I  declare  to  you  that  after  having,  by  rea- 
son of  my  profession,  pondered  this  subject  to  comfort  mourners  all  my 
life  long — during  the  thirty-five  years  of  my  ministry — I  am  more  and 
more  personally  satisfied  every  single  year,  that  if  for  this  life  only  we 
have  hope,  we  are  of  all  men  most  miserable.  And  I  tell  you  truly, 
that  if  I  were  to  be  convinced  to-morrow  that  this  is  all  a  fiction,  that 
there  is  no  existence  beyond  the  grave,  I  would  seal  my  mouth  with 
the  seven  seals  ot  the  Apocalypse,  which  no  man  could  break  open, 
before  I  would  whisper  that  guilty  disclosure.  In  this  world  of  sin, 
he  that  takes  away  the  hope  of  heaven,  takes  away  the  consolation  of 
those  that  sorrow.  There  is  nothing  else  that  can  comfort  a  heart 
crushed  by  bereavement  and  losses. 

It  is  but  for  a  moment.  Out  of  my  tree  the  bird  has  flown,  and 
sings  there  no  more.  But  it  sits  in  the  tree  of  life  and  sings,  and  I 
shall  hear  it  again.  I  am  alone ;  I  have  no  counsellor ;  I  am  without 
a  companion  ;  I  am  heart-sick  and  life-sick — but  what  then  ?  I  shall 
l^nd  again  all  that  I  have  lost,  and  more,  and  more  blessedly.  Soitows, 
as  storms,  bring  down  the  clouds  close  to  the  earth ;  sorrows  bring 
heaven  down  close  ;  and  they  are  instruments  of  cleansing  and  purify- 
ing. I  have  seen  many  a  man  that  was  not  true  to  his  philosophy, 
and  whose  theory  broke  down  at  the  side  of  the  gi-ave,  because  he 
could  not  endure  the  belief  that  he  was  burying  what  he  had  loved  ; 
and  who  said,  "Is  my  child  like  a  clock  when  some  chance  blow  has 
passed  through  it  ?  Is  my  child  like  a  shattered  clock,  that  kept  time 
until  it  was  struck,  and  then  ceased,  and  shall  never  keep  time  again  f 
Never  was  there  such  an  engine  of  torment  as  this  world  ;  never  was 
there  such  a  miserable  thing  as  men  with  such  susceptibilities,  and  in 
whom  sorrows  so  beat  like  waves  of  the  sea  on  the  shore  of  experi- 
ence, if  there  is  no  balm,  no  hope,  and  no  future. 


TEE  HE  A  VENL  T  STATE.  93 

But  now,  with  a  heaven,  my  sorrows  are  but  for  a  moment,  and  I 
comfort  myself,  and  I  carry  my  child  again  in  my  arms.  The  family 
that  I  have  with  me  is  not  so  large  as  the  family  that  wait  for  me. 
The  friends  that  are  round  about  me  are  not  so  many  as  the  friends 
that  sm'ely  will  give  me  a  choral  entrance  into  the  heavenly  land.  And 
heaven  is  the  comfort  of  bereavement.  Those  that  are  afflicted,  and 
that  beai"  he  yoke  for  the  sake  of  love,  look  up.  There  is  a  land  of 
recompensing  love  ;  and  out  of  that  di'aw  argument  of  patience  and 
of  gladness. 

So  the  sadness  of  old  age  is  greatly  cheered  and  comforted  by  the 
same  thing.  Every  man  who  sees  a  tree  going  into  the  winter,  can- 
not, I  suppose,  if  he  has  any  sentiment,  but  have  a  certain  sort  of  sad- 
ness. When  looking  out  from  my  little  cottage  porch,  I  see  the  first 
change  in  the  leaves,  the  first  faint  color,  I  always  sigh,  and  say,  "Ah! 
there  it  is ;  Autumn  is  coming."  And  Autumn,  you  know,  means 
what  comes  after.  It  means  brightness  ;  it  means  gorgeous  crimsons ; 
it  means  magnificent  browns,  ochres,  yellows ;  it  means  everything 
that  is  beautiful  on  the  mountain,  and  in  the  sky,  and  on  the  field  ; 
hut  ah !  do  not  I  know  that  the  sweet  whispering  breeze  bringing  to 
my  senses  the  sound  of  the  leaves  of  those  trees,  is  but  the  precursor 
of  that  hoai'se,  harsh  wind  that  is  already  ti-aveling  from  the  poles,  and 
is  to  bring  frost  and  snow  ?  And  when  I  see  my  noble  old  trees,  that 
were  so  full  of  life  of  their  own,  and  the  life  of  bu-ds  in  the  summer, 
at  last  having  shaken  ofi"  their  garments,  and  standing  all  bare,  I  can- 
not help  feeling  sad,  and  pitying  them.  But  I  know  that  there  is  a 
resurrection  for  them.  They  are  not  dead.  They  only  sleep.  When 
the  spring  comes  again,  the  birds  will  come  back  and  nest  in  them 
once  more.  And  when  I  see  the  old  drawing  near  to  the  grave ; 
when  I  see  those  who  have  had  part  and  lot  in  the  affairs  of  life, 
obliged  to  go  with  feebler  step,  and  obliged  to  perform  fewer  functions, 
my  heart  is  filled  with  sadness  for  them. 

When  the  time  comes,  which  cannot  be  long  delayed,  dear  friends, 
when  you  shall  look  upon  me  unable  to  stand  in  this  place,  with  my 
grey  hair  v,\uite,  and  another  preacl)ing  in  my  stead,  and  I  with  palsied 
hand  shaking  with  age,  and  scarcely  able  to  pronounce  the  benedic- 
tion, you  will  say,  "I  remember  him  in  the  day  of  his  strength,  I  re- 
member what  labors  he  performed,  and  how  he  spoke  in  loud  and 
manly  tones  of  instruction.  But  he  is  an  old  man,  now ;  he  is  passing 
ofl^  and  others  must  take  his  place." 

There  is  something  very  sad  in  that  It  is  sad  to  me.  It  was 
sad  to  me  to  see  it  in  my  father.  It  is  sad  to  you  to  see  it  in  your 
father  or  your  pastor.  But  it  is  with  men  as  it  is  with  trees.  The 
time  is  not  long  from  November  to  March.     It  is  but  a  step  from 


94  TEE  EEA  VENL  T  8TA  TE. 

old  age  into  a  youth  that  shall  never  itaow  old  age.  It  is  only  the 
outwai'd  part  that  is  wasting  ;  for,  "  Though  our  outward  man  per- 
ish, yet  the  inward  man  is  renewed  day  by  day." 

This  is  the  consolation  of  those  that  grow  old.  If  you  are  going 
ftirther  and  further  from  the  bright  things  of  the  world,  you  are  com- 
ing nearer  and  nearer  to  those  brighter  things  which  the  world  has 
helped  you  to  interpret.  Look  up,  and  be  willing  that  others  should 
take  your  place.  I  am  glad  that  I  have  had  the  chance  to  work,  and 
have  tried  to  put  into  my  work  such  strength  as  God  gave  me  ;  and 
when  God  calls  me  away,  I  shall  go  out  of  my  work  just  as  willingly 
as  I  came  into  it.  For  I  have  a  heavenly  home.  Whatever  may  be- 
come of  me,  I  have  my  hope  laid  up  in  heaven.  That  is  my  joy. 
That  is  my  strength.  That  is  my  consolation  in  every  trial.  It  is 
the  continual  interfusion  of  this  hope  and  imagination  of  heaven,  it 
is  the  light  of  the  other  sphere,  that  makes  me  cheerful  and  coura- 
geous and  indomitable  in  the  day  of  trial. 

Christian  brethren,  do  you  make  enough  use  of  heaven  ?  I  do 
not  rebuke,  nor  do  I  criticise  the  ways  in  which  you  are  accustomed 
to  look  upon  the  spirit  world.  This  is  your  matter.  If  I  can  help 
you  I  am  glad,  but  if  I  cannot,  you  have  the  same  liberty.  He  that 
has  the  true  way  of  looking  at  heaven,  will,  I  think,  be  better, 
stronger,  more  patient,  more  manly.  He  has  no  right  conception  of 
heaven  whose  heaven  makes  him  effeminate.  He  has  the  true  idea 
of  heaven,  whose  heaven  makes  him  bold,  strong,  enduring,  sweet, 
gentle,  humble,  teachable,  and  Christlike. 

And  now  may  God  grant  that  every  one  of  us  may  look,  not 
alone  at  the  Scriptures,  but  through  the  Scriptures  into  life  itself,  that 
we  may  fashion  to  ourselves  a  companionable  heaven,  so  near  to  us 
that  it  shall  distil  celestial  influence  upon  us.  May  there  be  none  in 
this  great  assembly  who  shall  fail  at  last  of  heaven,  without  God 
and  without  hope,  livmg  in  darkness  and  uncertainty  in  this  life,  dy- 
ing blindly,  and  rising  only  to  lose  the  heritage  of  eternal  glory. 
How  miserable  a  lot  is  that ! — especially  when  all  the  powers  above, 
all  divine  influences,  have  been  shed  forth  that  men  may  know,  and 
that  they  may  choose,  and  that  they  may  take  hold  inseparably  upon 
that  better  part  which  shall  not  be  taken  from  them.  A  rest  is  prom- 
ised.    See  that  ye  come  not  short  of  this  rest  through  unbelief. 


THE  E^A  VENL  T  8TA  TE.  95 

PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

Througli  darkness  and  through  light,  through  storm  and  through  calm, 
knowing  our  way,  or  lost  and  searching  it  again,  we  are  seeking  our  home, 
0  Father  !  We  are  striving  to  rise  above  those  temptations  into  which  we 
were  born,  where  is  our  apprenticeship,  our  school.  We  are  striving,  not  to 
despise  the  flesh,  and  yet  not  to  be  subject  to  it ;  not  to  despise  the  riches 
of  the  beauty  of  the  earth  upon  which  we  tread,  and  yet  not  to  abuse  it  or 
to  become  enslaved  to  it.  We  are  seeking  to  free  ourselves  from  the  thrall 
of  passion,  and  yet  not  to  lose  the  energy  of  the  power  which  comes  from  it. 
We  desire  to  behold  the  truths  which  cannot  be  seen  by  mortal  eyes ;  and 
yet  not  to  be  carried  away  from  the  commerce  of  this  world.  Thou  art  un- 
folding in  us  a  royal  nature  whose  metes  and  bounds  we  do  not  discern  ; 
whose  very  path  is  unrevealed ;  but  this  we  know,  that  as  in  summer,  in 
light  and  heat,  every  plant,  ignorant  as  it  is,  knows  how  to  find  its  own  full 
self,  so  if  we  are  the  children  of  light  and  love,  thou  thyself  wilt  develop  in  us 
the  character  most  needed.  We  can  help  ourselves  but  very  little.  We  can 
resist  evil.  We  can  take  pains  to  get  the  light  and  come  into  thy  pres- 
ence. But  we  do  not  know  the  plan,  and  we  do  not  know  how  to  build,  and 
we  are  surrounded  with  so  many  adverse  influences  that  if  it  were  not  for 
our  faith  in  thee,  we  should  give  up  and  drift  as  the  currents  carry  us. 

But  now,  O  Lord  our  God,  thou  hast  made  us  to  believe  that  thou  art. 
Thou  hast  taught  us  that  thou  art  a  God  of  love  to  all  that  accept  thee  in 
loving.  And  we  have  accepted  thee.  Thou  art  our  Father,  and  thou  shalt 
be  our  exceeding  great  reward.  And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt 
keep  that  which  we  have  committed  to  thee,  and  which  thou  didst  first 
commit  to  us — our  souls.  We  believe  that  thou  wilt  fashion  them  so  that 
through  all  imperfections  and  in  spite  of  them,  through  all  temptations 
and  in  spite  of  them,  through  all  sins  and  in  spite  of  them,  and  through 
weakness  and  infirmities,  we  shall  at  last  come  off  victorious,  and  be  received 
home,  and  be  known  there,  as  we  are  longed  for  already,  and  have  our 
names  mentioned.  And  we  shall  be  as  the  sons  of  light,  and  shall  go  forth 
in  an  eternal  liberty  and  power,  the  conception  of  which  hath  not  entered 
upon  time. 

We  are,  O  Lord  God !  still  walking  veiled.  We  feel  in  ourselves,  at 
times,  the  motions  of  the  gods ;  and  yet  we  are  dethroned  ;  we  are  outcasts ; 
we  are  exiled ;  we  are  without  sceptre  or  crown — without  kingdom  or  au- 
thority ;  we  are  waiting  for  our  coronali)n.  Thou,  O  Lord  our  God,  wilt 
yet  bring  us  home  and  crown  us  and  instate  us  in  power  and  purity  and  love 
and  joy,  for  evermore, 

xiud  now  we  pray  that  we  may  have  the  faith  of  this  coming  love  so 
strong  that  it  shall  throw  down  upon  the  glare  of  this  life  a  tempering  influ- 
ence, that  we  may  not  be  too  much  enamored  of  things  seen,  which  perish 
in  the  using,  nor  too  easily  forget  things  unseen,which  only  are  permanen- 
cies. We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  we  may  have  such  a  sense  of  com- 
ing gladness  and  joy  in  the  land  of  rest,  that  we  may  not  too  much  estimate 
the  pleasures  of  this  life,  nor  too  greedily  grasp  after  its  riches,  nor  sacrifice 
too  m>ich  for  its  honors.  And  yet  we  do  not  desire  to  be  so  much  engrossed 
in  the  thoughts  of  the  life  to  come  that  we  shall  take  no  pains  with  this  life. 
We  desire  to  be  diligent  in  business,  fervent  in  spirit,  serving  the  Lord  in 
the  life  that  now  is,  that  peradventure  we  may  be  admitted  to  the  higher 
service  and  greater  blessedness  of  the  life  that  is  to  come.  We  pray  that 
thou  wilt  help  us  out  of  our  comforts  and  consolations  to  interpret  all  our 
disappointments  by  the  way,  and  all  our  bereavements.  As  we  see 
one  and  another  staff  and  stay  breaking,  as  one  and  another  foun- 
tain grows  dry,  as  one  and  another  cord  that  vibrated  snaps,  and 
as  we  find  ourselves  strangers  and  pilgrims  with  growing  need,  O  grant 
that  we  may  not  feel  the  desolateness  of  life  and  society  to  be  evideuce  of 
the  hopelessness  of  that  for  which  we  are  living.    Help  us  evermore  to 


9  6  TEE  HE  A  VENL  T  STATE. 

live  by  faith  and  not  by  sight.  How  great  is  the  company  of  those  that 
surround  us  !  How  great  are  the  clouds  of  victorious  spirits  that  are  our 
spectators  !  Who  is  there  that  hath  not  more  than  tongue  can  count  of  those 
spirits  of  love  that  wait  and  watch  for  him  ?  We  pray  that  our  treasure, 
though  it  be  invisible  and  yet  unrealized,  may  make  us  glad,  and  that  we 
may  not  be  afraid  of  that  outward  poverty  which  men  so  much  disesteem. 
And  grant  that  if  we  be  in  weakness,  and  even  in  sickness,  and  cast  down, 
and  laid  aside  from  the  tasks  of  life,  from  the  sight  of  men,  we  may  yet  live 
in  the  presence  of  that  higher  sphere  where  we  are  to  be  princes  of  power. 
And  so  may  we  nourish  ourselves  at  the  breast  of  the  future.  So  may  we 
fix  our  faith  upon  heavenly  hope.  So  may  we  seek  consolation  in  trouble 
from  things  that  would  mislead  us.  Grant  that  we  may  walk  above  the 
world  while  we  are  walking  upon  it.  If  our  feet  do  tread  the  ground,  may 
our  head  move  among  the  stars.  May  we  be  lifted  up  so  that  we  shall  ever- 
more hear  the  voices  of  time  and  the  voices  of  eternity,  and  interpret  the 
one  in  the  language  of  the  other,  and  measure  all  things  below,  not  by  the 
false  measurings  of  men's  imperfect  judgment,  but  by  the  golden  reed  of  thy 
sanctuary. 

.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  upon  us  to-day.  It  hath 
already  been  a  good  day  to  our  souls.  The  morning  came  as  the  opening 
of  the  temple  of  God.  We  have  worshipped  thee  and  rejoiced  in  thee. 
And  we  stand  now  to  give  thanks  for  the  day,  and  still  to  hope  that  thou 
wilt  shake  the  tree  of  life,  and  that  its  fruit  may  fall  and  be  gathered  through 
all  the  hours  of  this  blessed  day. 

We  pray  for  the  children ;  and  we  beseech  of  thee  that  they  may  grow 
up  in  Christian  families,  with  sweetness  of  temper  and  purity  of  conscience, 
and  a  lordly  manliness — even  that  lordliness  which  comes  from  God. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  parents,  and  especially  those  that  are 
almost  afraid  of  their  task,  and  that  come  with  awe  and  fear  and  trembling 
to  the  rearing  of  these  immortals  that  thou  hast  given  to  them.  We  pray 
that  thou  wilt  strengthen  and  guide  them.  For  thou  art  their  Father,  even 
more  gloriously  than  they  are  parents  to  their  own  children. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  our  efforts  to  instruct  the  rising  genera- 
tion. Bless  our  Sabbath  school,  and  all  its  officers.  Bless  those  who  are  gath- 
ered from  our  own  midst  and  from  the  community  at  large  into  our  schools 
and  classes.  We  thank  thee  that  the  dews  of  divine  grace  have  rested  upon 
the  young,  and  that  so  many  are  converted  to  God,  and  walk  worthy  of 
their  vocation.  And  we  pray  that  this  year  may  be  a  year  full  of  blessings — 
not  outward  blessings  alone;  not  blessings  to  the  eye,  nor  to  pride,  nor  to 
vanity,  but  inward  blessings — blessings  of  the  heart;  blessings  which 
cleanse  and  lift  men's  natures  and  purify  their  souls.  May  the  new  birth 
pass  upon  many,  and  may  there  be  the  voices  never  ceasing  in  our  midst  of 
those  who  rejoice  in  the  newness  of  life,  and  chant  the  praises  of  God  who 
hath  redeemed  them  by  his  own  precious  blood. 

Bless  all  the  Churches  in  our  midst,  and  thy  servants  that  minister  in 
them.  Be  with  all  those  that  labor  for  the  elevation  of  m.  rals  in  these  great 
cities,  and  for  those  who  seek  to  inspire  justice  throughout  our  land,  and  for 
those  who  endeavor  to  stay  the  progress  of  corruption  and  to  beat  down  the 
miglit  of  those  who  employ  their  power  for  greed. 

We  pray  for  all  those  men  who  love  truth  and  virtue.  May  their  voices 
rise  higher  than  all  other  sounds;  and  into  their  natures  may  the  power 
come ;  and  may  this  nation  learn  what  prosperity  there  is  in  righteousness, 
purity  and  peace.  And  while  other  nations  are  tossed  to  and  fro  as  we 
have  lately  been ;  while  they  shrink  with  dread  from  the  cup  whose  contents 
are  blood,  which  we  have  but  just  taken  to  our  lips,  grant  that  we  may  not 
look  upon  them  with  a  cold  eye  or  an  unsympathizing  heart ;  but  as  even 
we  cried  out  for  ourselves,  ''How  long,  O  Lord!  how  long?"  so  we  call 
unto  thee  in  behalf  of  the  nations  of  the  earth,  and  pray  that  thy  pitying 
eye  may  look  upon  their  adversity.     O  grant  that  the  day  may  come  when 


TEE  HE  A  YENL  T  ST  A  TE.  9  7 

knowledge  and  true  religion  shall  destroy  oppression  and  superstition, 
and  all  hurtful  and  hateful  power,  and  when  men  shall  learn  to  love  one 
another,  and  the  common  people  of  the  nations  shall  refuse  to  be  led  against 
their  brothers,  and  the  whole  earth  shall  at  last  find  peace  and  purity  and 
gladness. 

Grant  these  things,  not  because  we  are  worthy  to  ask  them,  but  for  thine 
own  name's  sake.  And  to  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Spirit  shall  be 
praises  everlasting.    Amen. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON". 


Grant  unto  us,  our  Heavenly  Father,  that  blessing  which  maketh  rich 
and  addeth  no  sorrow.  Take  us  up  into  the  bosom  of  thy  love.  Be  to  us,  we 
beseech  of  thee,  a  tabernacle,  a  pavilion,  where  we  may  be  hid  till  the  storm 
is  overpast.  May  we  not  trust  to  our  own  ingenuity,  nor  stand  in  our  own 
natural  firmness.  May  we  live  in  God.  May  we  know  that  we  shall  tri- 
umph in  him.  May  we  rest  in  God,  and  do  good,  and  fear  not.  Grant 
more  and  more,  as  we  grow  older  and  need  to  have  the  world  enlarged,  that 
the  horizon  may  move  before  us.  Grant  that  the  vision  may  so  come  near 
that  we  cannot  tell  where  the  earth  stops  or  heaven  begins;  and  that  thus 
we  may  go  from  glory  to  glory,  until  we  stand  in  Ziou  and  before  God. 

Aud  to  thj  name  shall  be  the  praise,  Father,  Son  and  Spirit.    Amm. 


VI. 

Future  Punishment. 


INVOCATION. 

Grant  unto  us  a  revelation  of  thyself  this  morning,  as  thou  hast  in  times 
past,  O  our  Father  and  our  God ;  and  yet  more  abundantly.  We  need  thee 
more  than  ever.  We  were  never  so  near  to  our  account  before ;  never  so 
near  to  thy  threshold,  which,  passing,  we  cannot  come  back  again.  We 
need  thee  because  never  so  much  as  now  have  we  been  sustained  by  grace, 
and  yet  lived  selfishly.  Grant,  then,  that  we  may  have  that  life  of  thine 
which  shaU  supplement,  shall  fill  up,  aU  the  avenues  of  our  life.  And  grant 
that  in  the  service  of  thy  house  in  its  joyful  memory,  in  its  instruction, 
in  all  its  worship,  in  its  fellowship  of  song,  in  its  love  and  benevolence,  we 
may  find  ourselves  fed,  and  rejoice  as  children  come  home  to  their  Father's 
house.  Which  we  ask  in  the  name  of  the  Beloved.  Amen. 
6 


PUTURE  PUNISHMENT. 


"And  these  shall  go  away  into  everlasting  punishment ;  but  the  right- 
eous into  life  eternal." — Matt,  xxv.,  46. 


Last  Sunday  morning  I  spoke  to  you  of  Heaven,  showing  the  meth- 
od of  instruction  which  the  sacred  Scriptures  adopt  respecting  the 
future  spirit-world.  Far  less  agreeable,  but  scarcely  less  important, 
is  the  teaching  of  Holy  Scripture  in  respect  to  the  future  punishment 
of  the  finally  wicked. 

The  two  grand  truths — victorious  virtue  crowned  with  happiness, 
and  wickedness  overtlu-own,  sad  and  suiFering, — go  through  the  New 
Testament  as  light  and  shadow  wait  on  each  other  thi-ough  physical 
nature. 

The  same  method  of  representation  is  followed  in  depicting  the  fu- 
ture punishment  of  the  wicked  as  in  painting  the  joy  of  the  righteous. 
A  scientific  accuracy  is  impossible.  Our  present  life  has  not  the  terms 
or  the  experience  which  will  interpret  to  us  in  the  body  the  truths  which 
are  supersensuous,  ethereal,  and  which  imply  development  into  a  con- 
dition for  which  this  s/,ate  of  being  has  only  analogies,  but  no  actual 
knowledge.  All  instruction  in  reference  to  the  other  state  is  therefore 
proximate  and  representative,  and  of  necessity  employs,  not  the  sci- 
entific reason,  but  imagination  and  the  reason  under  it.  For  the  imag- 
ination is  not  merely  a  decorative  fancy.  It  is  the  fundamental  element 
and  quality  which  constitutes  faith.  It  is  that  faculty  by  which  the 
soul  is  able  to  discern  clearly  invisible  truth  in  distinction  from  mate- 
rial and  sensuous  truth.  It  is  of  prime  importance  in  education.  And 
no  book  of  instruction  in  the  world  ever  made  larger  use  of  imag- 
ination as  the  channel  thi-ough  which  to  give  instruction  than  the 
Bible. 

Intelligent  commentators  and  preachers,  recognizing  the  majestic 
beauty  of  the  pictures  of  heaven,  have  long,  and  with  almost  unbroken 
consent,  taught  that  these  were  not  to  be  taken  litei'ally  :  they  were 
addressed  to  the  imagination,  and  designed  to  kindle  hope,  joy,  and 
courage.  And  in  the  parallel  of  the  sufiering  state  hereafter,  the  same 
method  of  teaching  exists.     All  the  experiences  which  men  have  had 

Sunday MoKNiNo,  Oct.  16, 1870.  Lesson:  Matt.  XXV..  14-46.  Hymns  (Plymouth  CoUeotion) i 
Nos.  25,  732.  383. 


100  FUTUBE  Pimi8HMENT. 

of  trouble,  all  the  things  which  have  in  them  the  power  of  inflicting 
suffering,  are  marshalled  to  create  in  the  soul  a  powerful  conception  of 
penalty.  Audi  penalty  is  the  thing,  and  not  the  special  method  which 
these  figures  shadow  out.  Fire  and  brimstone,  darkness  or  Imid  light, 
the  sword,  scorpions,  gnawing  worms,  storms,  thunder  and  lightning, 
and,  from  the  personal  experience  of  men,  fear,  overthrow,  despotic 
captivity,  torments  of  thought  and  feeling — these,  as  it  were,  are  sim- 
I)ly  the  pigments  which  are  employed  to  render  a  picture  of  the  solemn 
fact  that  as  sin  and  penalty  are  joined  together  in  this  life,  so  they  are 
in  the  life  to  come ;  and  that  this  conjunction  of  vu'tue  with  pleasure 
and  sin  with  pain  is  part  of  a  universal  and  everlasting  constitution ; 
and  not  peculiar  to  this  life. 

These  figures  are  not,  then,  designed  to  be  taken  as  literal  facts. 
The  taking  them  as  such  has  worked  immense  mischief,  and  will  work 
more.  Yet  they  point  to  the  invisible  spii-itual  truths  which  will  be  to 
our  soul  hereafter  what  these  pi<  tuies  now  are  to  our  imagination. 
There  will  not  be  fii-e ;  and  yet,  there  will  be  a  quick  sense  of  suflfer- 
ing  of  which  the  efiect  of  fire  is  a  fit  suggestion.  There  will  not 
be  literal  scorpions  and  gnawing  worms ;  but  thousands  of  men  aheady 
know  that  there  are  feelings  of  remorse  that  gnaw  the  soul  worse  than 
ever  worm  gnawed  the  body.  And  these  are  but  emblems  of  great 
spiritual  truth  ;  but  the  truths  are  spiritual,  and  not  carnal  nor  sensuous. 

1.  There  is  not  another  teaching  of  the  Bible  that  comes  home  to 
us  as  does  this  truth  of  punishment  in  the  future  life.  On  this  subject 
men  cannot  keep  down  the  heart  while  they  are  coolly  weighing  the 
evidence.  Because,  in  the  first  place,  it  strikes  the  very  soul  of  soul 
in  each  one.  It  strikes  through  uncultured  fear.  Or,  If  men  be  cul- 
tivated, and  accept  this  truth,  then  all  that  which  they  gain  by  re- 
finement, all  the  sense  of  personal  worth,  all  the  value  of  character,  all 
estimate  of  magnitude  in  one's  own  being,  is  put  at  peril.  And  the  sense 
of  loss  is  more  to  those  that  ai'e  refined  and  cultured  than  to  the  igno- 
rant can*  be  the  sense  of  fear.  But  it  comes  home  to  our  affections, 
also.  My  brethi-en,  it  is  one  thing  to  read  in  the  Bible  the  chapter  as 
I  read  it  in  your  hearing  this  morning,  and  other  such  passages,  and 
another  thing  to  ponder  them  in  the  face  of  a  dead  child.  It  may  not 
be  difllcult  for  a  theologian  to  sit  in  his  chair  and  reason  abstractly, 
rebutting  and  counter-thrusting  in  argument ;  but  when  he  is  called  to 
follow  his  own  son  who,  through  a  doubtful  or  an  openly  ignominious 
career,  has  gone  out  of  life,  it  is  not  in  human  nature  any  longer  to 
reason  in  the  same  calm  mood.  To  apply  this  truth  in  the  intensity 
of  agonized  love  following  its  lost  companion,  like  another  Orpheus 
seeking  Eurydice — these  are  things  that  bring  this  question  home  as 
almost  no  other  ever  is  brought  home  to  us. 


FUTURE  PUNISHMENT.  101 

It  touches  our  benevolence,  also,  as  applied  to  the  vast  mass  of  man 
kind,  who  certainly  do  not  live  according  to  the  very  lowest  standard 
set  up  by  the  laxest  moralist.  If  to  be  born  again,  if  to  begin  to  love, 
if  to  hate  selfishness,  if  to  begin  a  separation  from  our  animal  nature, 
are  the  conditions  of  joy  in  the  future  life,  then  how  few  of  all  the  ex- 
isting people  on  the  globe  have  met  those  conditions!  And  yet,  I 
will  defy  any  man  to  look  with  a  sympathetic  heart  out  upon  the 
masses  that  are  moving  more  than  all  the  leaves  of  the  forests  of 
the  continent,  and  let  the  conviction  pass  his  mind  as  even  the  shadow 
of  a  shade,  without  being  utterly  overwhelmed.  A  man  can  not  have 
the  susceptibility  which  is  cultivated  by  the  gospel  of  Christ,  and  then 
look  boldly  in  the  face  the  terrific  application  of  this  simple  truth  to 
the  outlying  masses  of  mankind,  and  not  shiver  and  tremble  with  sen- 
sibility. 

2.  We  are  not  surprised,  therefore,  to  find  that  the  educated  Chris- 
tian mind  of  all  lauds,  for  the  last  hundi-ed  years,  has  been  changing, 
and  that  milder  expressions  and  a  very  diflferent  spii»it  have  prevailed. 
It  is  certainly  true  that  theories  have  been  changing  from  gross  mate- 
rial representations  more  and  more  in  the  direction  of  moral  I'epresen- 
tations.  It  is  very  true  that  this  subject  is  not  preached  as  it  used  to  be 
— not  as  it  was  in  my  childhood.  It  has  not  been  preached  as  often, 
nor  with  the  same  fiery  and  familiar  boldness  that  it  used  to  be. 
Multitudes  of  men  who  give  every  evidence  of  being  spiritual,  regen- 
erate, and  devout,  and  laborious  and  self-denying,  find  themselves 
straitened  in  their  minds  in  respect  to  this  question,  and  are  tm'ning 
anxiously  every  whither  to  see  whence  relief  may  come  to  them.  There 
has  been  a  profound  change  in  the  sentiment  of  Christendom  in  regard 
to  those  gross  representations  of  future  punishment,  which  were  handed 
down  to  us  from  the  past. 

The  reasons  are  not  far  to  find.  The  mediaeval  literalization  of  t^he 
Bible  figures,  and  the  carrying  of  them  forward  with  collateral  and 
original  illustrations  of  the  same  kind,  had  nearly  reduced  the  truth  of 
the  future  not  only  to  a  sensuous,  but  to  a  brutal  and  infernal  condition. 
The  representations  that  were  accustomed  to  be  made  several  hundred 
yeai's  ago,  and  that  in  the  Roman  Church  are  still  made,  and*  occasion- 
ally in  Protestant  Churches,  were  such  that  it  seems  to  me  no  man 
could  maintain  self-respect,  or,  if  he  did,  that  no  man  could  maintain 
his  reason,  and  really  believe  them,  or  consciously  use  them.  They  are 
simply  calculated  to  inspire  horror  and  disgust. 

The  monkish  descriptions  of  hell  may  be  well  learned  from  Chris- 
tian art.  For  there  have  been  periods  of  history  when  we  could  have 
learned  theological  ideas  better  from  religious  art  than  from  books.  If 
you  will  take  Michael  Angelo's  picture  of  the  Last  Judgment,  you  will 


102  FTITURE  PUNISHMENT. 

better  understand  what  was  the  real  feeling  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived 
on  the  subject  of  reward  and  punishment,  than  by  reading  any  amount 
of  theological  treatises.  Let  any  one  look  at  that ;  let  any  one  see  the 
enormous,  gigantic  coils  of  fiends  and  men ;  let  any  one  look  at  that 
defiant  Christ  that  standi  like  a  superb  athlete  at  the  frent,  hurling  liis 
enemies  from  him,  and  calling  his  friends  toward  him,  as  Hercules  might 
have  done ;  let  any  one  look  upon  that  hideous,  wriggling  mass  that  goes 
plunging  down  through  the  air — serpents  and  men  and  beasts  of  every 
nauseous  kind,  mixed  together ;  let  him  look  at  the  lower  parts  of  the 
picture,  where  with  pitchforks  men  are  by  devils  being  cast  into  caldrons 
and  into  burning  fires,  where  hateful  fiends  are  gnawing  the  sculls  of 
suffering  sinners,  and  where  there  is  hellish  cannibalism  going  on — let 
a  man  look  at  that  picture,  and  the  scenes  which  it  depicts,  and  he  sees 
what  were  the  ideas  which  men  once  had  of  hell  and  of  divine  justice.  It 
was  a  nightmare  as  hideous  as  ever  was  begotten  by  the  hellish  brood 
itself;  and  it  was  an  atrocious  slander  on  God.  It  was  an  outrage 
against  the  government  of  God  in  the  universe.  It  was  an  outrage  on 
every  man's  susceptibilities  that  had  not  been  poisoned  already  by  the 
atmosphere  in  which  it  was  generated. 

If  you  suppose  that  this  habit  of  brutal  representation  of  the  ma- 
terial sufferings  of  the  other  life  is  dead,  then  look  at  the  represen- 
tation of  the  Last  Judgment  by  Cornelius,  a  Roman  Catholic  artist  of 
the  German  modern  school.  It  is  only  necessary  to  say  that,  having 
lived  in  a  later  and  more  enlightened  age,  he  has  succeeded  in  making 
a  pictui'e  more  hideous  than  that  of  Michael  Angelo.  As  a  study  of 
anatomy,  as  a  mere  piece  of  poetry,  the  sufferings  which  Michael 
Angelo  depicts,  may  display  the  skill  of  the  painter,  and  may  have  an 
interest  to  those  men  who  love  tragic  things ;  but  as  representations, 
Dante's  Inferno,  Michael  Angelo's  picture,  and  the  staple  represen- 
tations that  are  yet  made  in  the  Roman  Church,  are  as  outrageous  as  it 
is  possible  for  the  inflamed  imagination  to  produce.  I  do  not  wonder 
that  men  have  reacted  from  these  horrors — I  honor  them  for  it. 

Again,  the  impossibility  of  reconciling,  under  a  just  government,  a 
terrific  penalty  with  a  universal  neglect  of  mankind,  h-xs  been,  in  the 
way  in  which  many  persons  are  constituted,  the  origin  of  their  doubts. 

I  am  not  now  stating  my  own  opinions.  I  am  simply  giving  the 
different  views  which  men  hold  at  present,  or  have  held,  on  this 
subject. 

To  believe  the  stream  of  human  existence  to  be  fed  and  renewed 
in  every  generation,  which  is  pouring  over  the  precipice  at  the  rate 
of  thirty  millions  a  year,  into  such  torments  as  the  old  method  of  re- 
presentation presented  to  us,  and  at  the  same  time  to  teach  that  God 
is    a     loving  Father — these  two  things  have  seemed  so  difl[icult  to 


FUTURE  PUNISHMENT.  103 

multitudes  of  persons,  that  they  have  fled  fi-ora  the  attempt  to  recon- 
cile them,  and  have  abandoned  all  belief  in  them. 

Moreover,  Christianity  has  educated  a  moral  disposition  before 
which  the  various  theories  of  theology  that  have  sprung  into  existence 
within  the  last  two  thousand  years  are  now  on  trial  again.  And  the 
theologies  which  could  stand  the  moral  tests  of  the  ages  in  which  they 
were  bred,  cannot  many  of  them  stand  the  test  of  the  higher  develop- 
ments which  have  taken  place  in  our  age. 

For  example,  vindictive  justice  was  once  thought  to  be  perfectly 
right ;  but  it  cannot  be  defended  in  the  gi*eat  court  of  love.  Penal 
suffering,  disciplinary  and  educatory,  can ;  but  not  vindictive  justice. 
The  Fatherhood  of  God  is  taking  the  place  of  Oriental  monarchy. 
Once  it  was  held  that  God  might  do  just  what  He  pleased,  because 
He  pleased.  Now  we  are  taught  that  God  may  do  what  He  pleases, 
because  love  always  pleases  to  do  the  best  of  things.  God's  moral 
government  is  less  and  less  likened  to  despotic  government,  and  more 
and  more  to  household  government ;  and  it  will  continue  to  grow  in 
that  du'ection,  with  the  growth  of  civilization,  based  on  Christian  in- 
struction. The  question  that  arises  is  not,  "  What  may  a  supreme 
monarch  do  with  his  subjects  f  but,  "  What  must  a  Father  do  with 
His  erring  children  f     And  this  gives  pause  to  many  a  man. 

Moreover,  there  has  come  into  existence  a  new  sentiment  in  respect, 
to  the  rights  of  individuals.  When  kings  were  jure  divino  owners 
of  all  then*  subjects  and  theii-  subjects'  property,  when  in  them  was 
supposed  to  reside  supreme  wisdom  and  supreme  right,  then  men  had 
no  rights  that  they  could  urge  before  the  throne  ;  and  out  of  that  state 
of  feeling  came  the  interpretation  and  misinterpretation  of  the  mon- 
archic figures  of  the  Bible.  For,  when  the  Bible  represents  God  as  a 
monarch,  and  the  divine  government  as  a  monarchy,  it  never  is  with 
a  political  meaning.  It  is  always  for  an  aesthetic  purpose.  It  is,  by 
speaking  of  the  King,  to  raise  in  the  mind  of  those  to  whom  one 
speaks,  the  idea  of  gi-andeur,  of  beauty,  of  glory ;  and  it  never  con- 
ceived of  that  question  which  rises  in  our  minds  when  the  word  king 
is  spoken.  And  so  of  the  whole  apparatus  monarchical.  It  was  em- 
ployed according  to  the  law  of  symbolism,  or  of  emblems,  to  raise  up 
in  the  mind  a  conception  of  beauty,  or  joy,  or  power ;  but  was  never 
intended  to  determine  the  question  of  right  or  wrong,  as  between  aris- 
tocracy and  democracy,  or  between  democracy  and  monarchy. 

Now,  Christianity  itself  has  developed  a  democracy  that  teaches  us 
that  man  has  by  the  very  law  of  his  being  personal  rights  that  must  be 
respected.  Before  he  was  created  he  had  none  ;  but  the  very  act  of 
creation  endowed  him  with  rights  ;  and  God  crowned  him  with  them. 
The  old  mode  of  repi'esenting  man  as  nothing,  absolutely  nothing. 


104  FUTURE  PUNISHMENT, 

without  a  word  to  say,  can  never  again  have  the  same  force  or  growth 
that  it  had  before  Christianity  inspired  so  much  higher  an  estimate  of 
man  and  of  society. 

The  eternity  of  punishment,  when  anything  Uke  a  conception  of 
its  signification  and  meaning  seizes  the  minds  of  men,  seems  to  paralyze 
many  persons  with  gi'ief.  The  eternity  of  future  punishment  is  the  point 
where  ahnost  all  agonizing  doubts  and  struggles  of  Christian  theolo- 
gians have  arisen.  And  of  what  are  called  the  insoluble  mysteries 
of  divine  government,  it  seems  to  me  that  if  the  doctrine  of  etei'nity 
of  punishment  were  removed,  nine  out  of  ten  would  disappear  of 
tliemselves.  For  I  believe  that  they  result  simply  from  that  one  term, 
sxffering  eternity. 

All  these  reasons,  and  some  othei's  which  I  cannot  pause  to  enume- 
rate, have  conspired  to  work  the  change  which  I  say  has  taken  place, 
and  is  taking  place,  on  this  subject. 

3.  We  must  not  think  that  efforts  to  escape  these  views  of  the  eter- 
nal punishment  of  the  wicked  are  wanton,  or  that  they  indicate  a  low 
moral  tendency.  On  the  contrary,  they  are,  in  many  instances,  the 
result  of  the  very  highest  moral  suscej^tibility.  Nor  must  we  suppose 
that  they  spring  up  only  in  ignorant  minds.  They  arise  in  the 
most  cultivated  minds  that  thei-e  are  in  the  church  to-day.  Nor  are 
we  to  believe  that  they  are  plead  for  the  sake  of  getting  larger 
license  among  self  indulgent  and  wicked  men  ;  for  they  are  j)lead  by 
men  who  are  models  of  Christian  self-denial  and  heroism. 

It  is  therefore  a  matter  that  demands  still  further  looking  into. 
To  what  grounds  have  these  pressures  brought  men,  and  what  are  the 
theories  that  prevail  on  this  subject  to-day  ? 

Fu'st  is  the  Sadducean.  It  is  disbelief  in  any  immortality.  Accord- 
ing to  that  doctrine,  there  is  no  resurrection.  This  disposes  of  the 
question,  of  course,  by  one  single  stroke ;  and  I  need  not  pause  to 
speak  of  that. 

Next,  there  are  those  who  rid  themselves  of  the  unquestionable 
Scripture  truth  of  the  punishment  of  the  wicked,  by  denying  the  in- 
spiration of  the  Bible,  and  by  denying  the  authority  of  its  teaching  on 
this  point.  It  is  somewhat  remarkable  that  what  are  called  the  most 
liberal  interpreters  of  the  text,  generally  concede  that  a  fair  construc- 
tion of  the  Gospels  must  result  in  the  teaching  of  the  future  punish- 
ment of  the  wicked. 

Theodore  Parker  himself  declared,  I  think — I  may  be  mistaken ; 
but»if  I  recollect  right  he  declared — that  the  first  three  gospels  left  no 
doubt  in  his  mind  that  Christ  did  preach  the  doctrine  of  future  and 
eternal  punishment;  but  he  considered  Christ  to  be  a  fallible  man, 
D\i8takcn,  having  the  prejudices  of  his  age,  and  that  his  teaching  on 


FUTURE  PUmSHMENT.  lOo 

lliis  point  was  not  to  be  accepted  or  believed.  He  rid  himself  of  this 
doctrine,  as  thousands  do,  by  denying  the  inspiration  and  autliority  of 
the  Scriptures.  And  it  is  the  progress  in  this  direction  which  is  so 
much  feared  by  good  men.  When  a  man  has  given  up  this  one  f^icl 
of  inspiration,  he  has  given  up  the  whole  foundation  of  revealed  re- 
ligion, and  has  gone  upon  the  gi'ound  of  mere  natural  religion.  But, 
natural  religion  is  an  indefinite  term.  If  it  includes  the  moral  truths 
which  have  been  unfolded  through  the  experience  of  mankind,  then  it 
(lifters  but  little  from  revealed  religion.  If  it  looks  only  to  physical  na- 
ture, then  it  becomes  too  meagre  for  life,  and  dies  of  inanition  or  runs 
headlong  into  pantheism  or  atheism. 

A  third  class  have  taken  the  ground  of  what  I  may  call — and  I  saj' 
it  not  reproachfully,  but  simply  as  a  name — old-fashioned  Universal- 
ism.  This  teaches  that  men  suffer  in  this  life  for  their  sins,  and 
are  rewarded  for  their  virtues,  and  that  the  power  of  God  at  death 
sets  men  free  from  whatever  remains  of  sin  and  impurity  there  may 
be,  and  inspires  them  with  a  sovereign  spiritual  power  to  go  for- 
ward hereafter  in  the  true  life.  This  I  understand  to  be  the  philo- 
sophical statement  of  the  old  gi-ound  of  universalism.  But  these  views 
are  not  at  present  in  the  ascendent,  even  in  what  we  call  Univer- 
salist  Churches.  The  dominant  tendency  now  is  to  admit  future  pun- 
ishment as  a  truth  taught,  and  a  tenet  to  be  accepted,  but  to  teach 
that  it  is  remedial  and  educatory,  and  that  it  will  finally  bring  men  to 
holiness  through  suffering.  This  is  called  sometimes  the  Hestoration- 
ist  view. 

Not  a  little  progress  has  been  made,  however,  in  a  still  different 
direction  from  this — in  a  very  widely  different  view.  There  are  those 
who  seek  to  escape  from  the  doctrine  of  future  punishment  by  teaching 
that  immortality  is  not  natural ;  that  it  does  not  belong  to  all ;  that  it 
was  not  born  with  men  ;  that  it  is  a  special  gift  to  those  only  who  be- 
lieve in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  and  that  all  others  perish.  And  by 
perish  they  mean,  literally,  are  annihilated.  Some  say  that  they  are 
peremptorily  annihilated  at  death  ;  and  other  some,  that  they  are  con- 
sumed after  a  longer  or  shorter  period  of  penal  suffering.  But  both 
Mgree  that  annihilation  is  the  portion  of  wicked  men,  and  that  im- 
mortality belongs  only,  and  as  a  special  gift,  to  those  who  believe  in 
llie  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  And  so  this  class  of  men  escape  from  believ- 
ing the  dreadful  doctrine  of  future  punishment. 

There  are  those  who  teach  that  there  is  a  series  of  spheres,  or  planes, 
and  that  men  go  forth  from  this  life  to  that  sphere  or  plane  for  which 
iheir  particular  development  here  fits  them,  and  that  they  progress,  in 
ascending  order,  under  the  nutriment  of  spiritual  cullui-e,  until  all,  at 


106  FUTURE  PUNISHMENT. 

last,  will  reach  their  ultimate  perfection.     This  may  be  called  a  cross 
between  Swcdenborgianism  and  modern  "  spiritualism." 

Then,  a  few  there  are  who,  having  felt  the  pressure  of  the  great 
diificulties  which  are  involved,  have  fallen  upon  this  same  doctrine  of 
spheres,  or  successive  opportunities,  in  an  inverse  order;  but  they  have 
sought  to  escape  by  teaching  a  doctrine  of  previous  existence.  They 
hold  that  men  are  now  living  a  second  time  ;  that  they  have  already 
lived  and  fallen ;  and  that  God  has  now,  and  in  this  world,  given  them 
one  more  chance  to  recover  from  their  fall  in  the  foregoing  existences. 
This  is  only  a  variation  of  the  last  doctrine  of  spheres.  One  places 
the  renewed  chance  here,  and  the  other  places  it  hereafter.  Both  hold 
to  a  series  of  chances  or  spheres  of  existence  ;  only  one  says  that  this 
life  exhausts  the  series,  and  the  other  says  that  this  life  only  begins  the 
series.     It  is  the  same  theory ;  only  you  take  it  at  different  ends. 

Others  have  thought  that  while  the  system  of  reward  and  punish- 
ment was  eternal,  each  individual  under  that  system  did  not  suffer  eter- 
nally ;  that  the  gi'eat  moral  constitution  by  which  right  and  wrong  were 
distinguished,  and  pleasure  or  pain  attached  to  them  respectively,  was 
not  peculiar  to  this  life,  but  that  it  belonged  to  the  eternal  life  and  the 
order  of  things  forever.  They  hold  that  the  great  law  by  which  sin 
suffers  and  righteousness  rejoices,  is  eternal ;  but  that  men  do  not 
individually  go  into  eternal  suffering  because  the  system  of  penalties  is 
eternal. 

Without  my  expressing  an  opinion  with  regard  to  any  of  these  sys- 
tems, further  than  I  have  in  explanation  of  them,  you  will  be  struck  in 
view  of  them,  with  two  things  :  first  with  the  anguish  of  heart  which 
has  led  men  to  seek  some  relief  from  the  popular  representations  of 
eternal  punishment.  We  cannot  meet  this  anguish  of  men's  hearts  on 
cold  exegetical  grounds.  We  may  not  believe  with  them,  but  we  can- 
not denounce  them.  We  may  think  that  they  have  taken  an  evasive 
line  of  reasoning,  or  that  they  have  gone  off  on  a  fancy,  rather  than  a 
true  line  of  fact ;  or  we  may  say  that  it  is  contrary  to  the  testimony  of 
Scripture;  but  when  great  natures,  in  the  anguish  of  their  souls,  and 
with  theii"  sympathies  enkindled  for  their  fellow-men,  have  taken  one 
or  the  other  of  these  grounds,  they  are  to  be  respected,  and  not  perse- 
cuted. The  time  is  coming  when  men  will  demand  the  right  to  think, 
to  open  again  these  questions  of  destiny,  and  to  bring  to  bear  upon 
them  all  that  added  light  which  the  later  ages  of  Christianity,  and  a 
higher  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  will  enable  them  to  concentrate. 
I  do  not  say  that  they  are  right  or  wrong;  but  this  I  declare, 
that  if  there  is  any  one  point  on  which  we  are  to  be  tolerant  and 
charitable  and  forbearing  in  our  constructions  of  men's  beliefs,  it  is  on 
this.     For  there  is  not  a  place  where  the  thought  can  dwell  that  is 


FUTURE  PUNISHMENT.  107 

S.0  ferrific,  and  where  the  heart  suffers  so  profoundlj   as  on  this  very 
point. 

Contrast  these  various  theories,  however,  with  the  sublime  simplic- 
ity of  Christ's  teaching,  and  you  will  be  struck  with  the  difference  be- 
tween inspired  teaching  and  human  philosophizing — for  I  now  state 
affirmatively  what  I  understand  to  be  the  Scrijature  doctrine^and  repre- 
sentation. The  whole  doctrine  substantially  rests  upon  Christ's  sole 
teaching.  If  we  had  only  the  Old  Testament  we  coald  but  guess  that 
there  was  an  existence  after  death,  of  any  kind.  The  full  disclosure 
belongs  to  the  New  Testament ;  and  in  the  New  Testament,  while  there 
are,  especially  now  in  the  light  of  the  Gospels,  passages  in  which  the 
Apostles  teach  the  truth  of  dreadful  coming  punishment,  yet  the  founda- 
tion, the  main  ground  and  confidence  and  support  of  this  truth  is  that 
our  Master  taught  it.  The  loving,,  the  gentle,  the  sympathetic,  the  sacri- 
ficial Saviour,  who  loved  sinning  men  so  that  he  came  to  die  for  them — • 
he,  calmly,  deliberately,  over  and  over  again,  did  teach  his  disciples  in 
such  a  way  that  they  at  that  time,  and  since  then  the  great  body  of 
the  church,  have  believed  that  he  meant  us  to  understand  that  there 
is  a  future  state  of  punishment,  and  that  it  is  so  great  and  dread- 
ful a  thing  that  all  men  should  with  terrible  earnestness  flee  from  it. 

He  announced  the  fact.  He  did  not  reason  upon  it,  nor  point  out 
its  place  in  a  system  of  moral  truth,  nor  give  it  philosophical  defini- 
tion, nor  consider  objections  to  it,  nor  attempt  to  reconcile  it  with  any 
theory  of  divine  love  or  divine  power.  He  raised  His  hand  to  the  sky 
to  draw  aside  the  curtain,  and  there,  right  before  his  hearers,  rose  the 
dark  grandeur  of  future  Retribution.  He  bore  witness  to  it  as  a  fact. 
He  did  not  discourse  upon  it  as  a  philosophy.  From  the  beginning  of 
his  ministry  to  the  end,  he  went  about  saying,  "Rej^ent!  repent!" 
And  the  universal  sinfulness  of  man,  while  it  never  had  so  much 
sympathy,  at  the  same  time  never  had  such  fidelity  of  rebuke  as  in 
the  ministry  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  He  did  not  teach  that  the  dan- 
ger of  men's  sinfulness  is  in  this  life ;  but,  while  doubtless  recognizing 
all  the  incidental  penalties  that  belong  to  evil-doing  under  material 
law,  he  all  the  time  kept  open  before  the  eye  the  great  horizon  of 
the  future.  There  is  not  one  thing  more  characteristic  of  Christ's  teach- 
ing than  that  constant  largeness  of  sphere  in  his  thought — that  looking 
to  the  great  Beyond.  It  was  the  cope  of  the  eternal  world  under 
which  he  seemed  to  be  standing.  And  one  reason  of  the  dignity  and 
authority  and  power  with  which  he  taught,  and  the  grasp  that  he  laid 
on  men's  consciousness,  as  well  as  on  then-  reason  and  then-  sensibilities, 
was  that  he  spoke  as  One  that  came  down  from  heaven ;  and  his  teach- 
ings on  the  subject  of  penalty,  therefore,  were  not  teachings  of  the  facts 


108  FUTURE  PUNISHMENT. 

of  natural  law  in  this  world,  but  were  teachings  in  respect  to  the  ever- 
lasting constitution  of  God,  from  eternity  to  eternity.  He  taught  that 
it  was  a  danger  that  men  had  in  the  future  so  great  as  to  demand  from 
eveiy  man  the  putting  forth  of  his  whole  strength. 

He  did  not  teach  that  symbols  are  literal  and  not  figures,  that  hell 
iG  a  literal  kingdom,  nor  that  there  is  a  literal  fire  there,  nor  that  tbey 
who  are  gatliered  there  are  literally  tormeiilcd  as  men  in  dungeons 
and  inquisitorial  monarchical  prisons  were;  but  this  he  certainly  did 
mean,  and  this  men  understood  that  he  meant — that  their  sins  will  bring 
down  upon  them  penalties  here,  and  penalties  hereafter,  and  that  the 
danger  is  neither  Ight  nor  transient.  It  is  vast,  it  is  voluminous; 
and  he  measured  it  oy  the  effort  that  is  required  to  overcome  it.  And 
that  was  indicated  by  his  words,  "  Strive  (that  is,  agonize)  to  enter  in 
at  the  straight  gate.  Many  sh.Ul  seek  to  enter  in,  and  shall  not  be  able." 
It  was  declared  that  the  kingrlom  of  heaven  suifcrs  violence,  and  the 
violent  storm  it — that  is  the  figure.  Men  are  in  such  peril  of  losing 
heaven,  and  of  falling  into  wreck  and  ruin,  that  they  must  put  forth 
their  utmost  exertion.  That  which  a  beleaguering  army  does,  do  ye 
and  get  the  gate  open ;  and  then  charge  through  and  take  possession 
of  the  fort.  "The  kingdom  of  heaven  suftereth  violence,  and  the  vio- 
lent take  it  by  force."  It  is  a  real  danger.  It  is  an  awful  danger. 
It  is  calculated  to  stir  up  fear,  quicken  imagination,  acuminate  sus- 
ceptibility, and  to  put  men  everywhere  on  the  alert.  This  feeling 
ran  all  through  Christ's  ministry. 

The  darif^er  also  is  so  great  that  it  was  the  occasion  of  His  com- 
ing from  heaven.  Not  less  than  equal  with  the  Father,  He  laid  aside 
the  glory  which  He  had,  that  He  might  rescue  the  world  from  death. 
His  advent.  His  life,  His  teachings,  His  sacrifice  and  His  death.  He 
connected,  all  of  them,  with  the  peril  that  betided  men  ;  and  the 
whole  example  of  Christ  was  a  silent  testimony  to  the  reality  of 
that  fear  which  bi'ooded  like  dark  thunderclouds  over  the  whole  wide 
horizon  of  the  future. 

This  was  the  undertone  which  ran  through  the  whole  of  Christ's 
teaching,  both  public  and  private.  He  inculcated  morality  and  man- 
hood ;  but  there  was  something  beyond  this.  There  was  an  invisible 
world.  There  were  inexpressible  perils.  He,  and  after  Him  His 
apostles,  labored  as  they  that  would  snatch  men  as  brands  from  the 
bm-ning. 

Now,  I  have  felt  every  difficulty  that  any  man  has  ever  felt.  In  my 
thought  I  walk  around  about  the  terrific  fact  of  the  future.  I,  too, 
take  into  account  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  and  I  look  upon  the  unpitied 
nations  of  the  globe ;  and  with  inexpressible  longing  nnd  anguish, 
for  which  there  is  no  word,  I  have  sought  relief.     But  there  is  the 


FUTURE  PUmSHMENT.  109 

plain,  simple  testimony  of  Jesus  Christ.  I  cannot  get  around  that, 
nor  get  over  it.  There  it  is.  I  have  nothing  to  say.  I  cannot  fathom 
the  matter.  A  child  can  ask  me  questions  that  I  cannot  answer.  I 
find  my  soul  aching.  As  it  were  drops  of  blood  flow  for  tears.  But, 
after  all,  I  Jo  believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  And  I  do  not  believe 
He  would  deceive  me  nor  deceive  you.  And  if  you  ask  me  for  the 
reason  c:i'  lie  faith  that  is  in  me,  I  simply  say  this,  "  Jesus  says  so" — 
tliat  is  all.  And  I  cannot  give  up  His  testimony.  I  preach  the  love 
of  God,  and  I  do  not  know  what  the  scope  of  that  love  is.  I  do  not 
know  where  it  would  logically  lead.  But  I  am  sure  that  I  am  right  in 
preaching  that  all  punitive  elements  are  under  the  control  of  love. 
I  am  perfectly  sure  that  love  will  bring  everything  right  in  the  end. 
I  therefore  preach  without  qualification,  and  almost  without  limitation 
on  that  side.  But  I  am  not  to  be  understood,  on  that  account,  as  not 
believing  what  Christ  Himself  deliberately  says  in  respect  to  the  peril 
of  sin,  or  in  regard  to  punishment  in  the  life  which  is  to  come.  When 
I  doubt  the  doctrine,  therefore,  it  will  be  because  I  doubt  the  divinity 
of  Christ.  As  long  as  I  hold  to  the  divinity  of  Christ,  I  cannot  but 
hold  the  truth  which  He  taught  me  to  believe  and  to  teach  to  others — 
that  sin  will  be  visited  in  the  other  life  with  terrible  penalties,  such 
as  no  man's  imagination  can  pierce.  "  It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  fall  into 
the  hands  of  the  living  God." 

It  goes  to  my  heart  to  say  these  things.  This  is  not  the  side  that 
I  seem  to  myself  called  to  preach.  Yet  it  is  there,  and  if  I  am  faithful 
to  my  whole  duty  I  must  preach  it.  As  a  surgeon  does  things  that 
are  most  uncongenial  to  himself,  so  sometimes  I  do.  And  I  do  this 
with  tears  and  with  sorrow.     It  makes  me  sick. 

I  remark,  in  review,  then,  that  while  we  are  to  be  utterly  tolerant 
of  those  who  have  adopted  other  theories ;  while  we  are  neither  to 
disown  them  as  Christians,  nor  to  discipline  them,  for  believing  as  they 
do — the  day  has  gone  by  when  a  man  is  to  be  disciplined  for  his  hon- 
est belief ;  if  men  cannot  be  cured  in  the  open  court  of  reasoning,  they 
cannot  be  cured  at  all,  and  we  are  not  their  masters  to  punish  them — 
while  we  are  to  acknowledge  every  man's  right  in  this  respect,  and 
treat  with  kindness  and  fair-mindedness  those  that  take  grounds  differ- 
ent from  our  own,  yet  let  me  say  that  any  theory  which  takes  oflF  the 
pressure  of  responsibility  that  rests  upon  every  man,  that  removes 
from  any  man's  conscience  the  burden  that  Christianity  puts  there,  or 
lessens  his  feeling  of  the  awfulness  of  sin,  is  unchristlike  and  dangerous. 
Christ  placed  the  burden  of  fear  on  unrepentant  men's  consciences; 
and  any  one  who  takes  ofi"  that  burden  of  fear  is  not  Christ-like. 

I  say,  once  more,  that  any  theory  is  permissible  that  still  puts  be- 
fore a  man  all  the  motives  and  spurs  of  hope  and  of  fear  as  they  are 


110  FUTURE  PUm8HMENT. 

combined  in  the  truth  of  heaven  and  hell ;  and  that  any  modificati6n8 
of  views  hitherto  held  are  permissible  if  they  do  not  break  the  force 
of  responsibility.  If  you  break  that,  you  break  the  great  element 
of  moral  government.  The  sense  of  obligation  to  right,  and  the  fear 
of  doing  wrongj  should  be  maintained.  Variations  in  philosophy  may 
be  permissible,  but  we  must  have  the  substance  of  Christ's  teaching, 
which  is,  that  it  is  damnable  to  sin,  that  it  is  dangerous  to  die  in  sin, 
and  that  the  future  is  full  of  peiil  to  wicked  men ;  while  the  life  to 
come  is  full  of  blessedness  to  the  righteous. 

This  leads  me,  lastly,  to  speak  of  the  uses  which  we  are  to  make  of 
this  truth.  It  seems  to  me  that  instead  of  dividing  ourselves  up  into 
pugnacious  sects,  instead  of  separating  ourselves  into  contending 
schools,  on  this  matter,  we  should  constantly  have  before  our  minds 
these  most  solemn  testimonies  of  Christ  in  his  teaching  throughout  the 
Gospel,  and  that  they  should  keep  alive  and  sharp  in  every  one  of  us 
the  reality  of  right  and  wrong.  We  ought  not  to  allow  the  distinc- 
tion between  good  and  evil  to  be  fused,  run  together,  or  to  be  slurred 
over.  All  the  world  is  filled  with  illusions ;  and  there  is  nothing  that 
men  are  in  more  danger  of  losing  than  clear,  sharp  notions  of  honor, 
and  truth,  and  rectitude,  and  responsibility.  And  this  teaching  of 
Christ  brings  the  whole  pressure  of  the  eternal  world  to  bear  on  the 
conscience  in  such  a  way  as  to  keep  it  alert,  sensitive,  and  true.  It 
should  keep  alive  in  us  a  sense  of  our  own  eternal  being.  We  never 
live  only  for  the  day ;  and  yet  we  do  live  by  the  day.  But,  in  the 
sense  of  formative  power,  the  feelings  that  throb  and  swell  in  you 
to-day  are  master-masons,  and  with  their  little  trowels  they  are  building, 
building,  building,  in  your  thoughts  and  impulses ;  and  they  never 
leave  you  as  they  found  you.  You  are  changing  from  hour  to  hour  ; 
and  that  which  is  building  is  building  for  eternity.  For  our  life  does 
not  consist  in  the  days  that  we  are  spending  on  earth.  Our  life  runs 
forward  endlessly.  And  though  we  do  not  see  what  is  being  done 
within,  the  work  goes  on  without  cessation. 

i  The  man  who  sits  at  the  end  of  the  magnetic  line  works  at  his 
little  telegraphic  machine,  but  sees  no  writing.  The  message  is  ren- 
dered a  hundred  miles  away.  We  are  living  here,  and  all  our  acts 
are  performed  here ;  but  the  record  and  the  portraitm'e,  the  character 
and  the  destiny  report  themselves  far  beyond.  / 

This  doctrine  of  the  Future  makes  life  most  solemn,  and  brings 
motives  for  fidelity  and  for  activity  which  we  cannot  gather  within  the 
horizon  of  time.  It  ought  to  inspire  earnestness  and  watchfulness 
and  great  endurance  and  great  industry,  in  those  who  are  seeking  to 
save  themselves. 

We  are  many  of  us  as  men  who  have  been  cast  away  upon  the  sea, 


FUTURE  PUmSEMENT.  Ill 

and  are  upon  rafts,  trying  to  reach  the  shore.  We  are  as  men  that  are 
sick,  and  are,  by  watchfulness,  and  by  care,  and  by  skill,  striving  to 
regain  their  health.  We  should  live,  not  as  men  who  are  well,  but  as 
men  that  need  a  physician. 

We  ought  especially  to  be  incited  to  fidelity  to  our  children.  By 
as  much  as  you  fear  and  dread  this  great  truth  of  the  punishment  of 
sin  hereafter,  by  so  much  you  must  be  faithful  to  your  children  from 
the  cradle  upward,  and  bring  them  up  in  the  nurture  and  admonition 
of  the  Lord.  It  is  not  safe  for  them  to  sin.  It  is  not  safe  for  them  to 
be  selfish.  It  is  not  safe  for  them  to  be  proud.  It  is  not  safe  for  them 
to  be  sensuously  prosperous,  sacrificing  every  virtue  that  they  may 
be  prosperous  in  this  world.  You  are  bringing  them  up  for  the  king- 
dom of  God.  Woe  be  to  that  mother  and  to  that  father  who  stand  in 
the  judgment  day  Pt  last,  and  hear  their  child  say,  "  But  for  you  1 
had  not  perished !" 

ISTo  man  can  enier  into  the  kingdom  of  God  without  strife.  No  vir- 
tue can  be  wrougb-t  out  without  strife.  Our  virtues  are  like  crystals  hid- 
den in  rocks.  No  man  shall  find  them  by  any  soft  ways,  but  by  the 
hammer  and  hf^  fire.  If  there  is  anything  that  is  to  endure  the  fear  of 
death,  and  tl>«  strifes  of  the  eternal  world,  it  is  that  to  which  we  come 
by  sufiering.  And  we  are  to  account  nothing  too  heavy,  nothing  too 
sharp,  nothing  too  long,  in  this  life  that  shall  bring  us,  at  last,  crowned 
and  robed  and  sceptered,  into  the  presence  of  our  own  God  to  be  par- 
ticipators of  his  immortality. 

Men  and  brethren,  we  are  standing  on  the  verge  of  the  unseen 
world.  All  the  thunderous  din  of  this  life  ought  not  to  fill  our 
ears  so  but  that  we  can  hear  the  Spirit  and  the  Bride  that  say  to  every 
man,  through  this  golden  air  to-day,  "  Come  !  come  !"  And  that  lonely 
and  solemn  sound,  like  that  of  the  surf  beating  on  the  shore  from  the 
broad  Atlantic,  that  all  day  and  all  night  sounds  on,  and  is  never  still — 
that  sound  comes  from  the  other  world,  and  says  to  us,  "  Beware,  be- 
ware of  that  punishment  of  sin  which  overhangs  the  other  and  the 
under  life  forever  and  forever  !" 

May  God  bring  us  through  brightness  to  gladness,  and  through 
gladness  to  joy,  and  through  joy  to  immortality  of  blessedness.   Amen. 


112  FUTURE  PUNISHMENT. 

PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

O  God,  before  thee  can  all  flesh  come,  with  all  their  wants,  to  ask  supply; 
with  all  their  infirmities,  to  receive  strength ;  and  before  thee  shall  all  come 
to  render  their  dread  account,  when  thou  shalt  judge  the  quick  and.  the 
dead.  And  we,  too,  shall  come ;  and  secret  things  shall  be  made  known, 
and  hidden  things  plain,  before  God  ;  and  we  shall  receive  according  to  the 
deeds  done  in  the  body.  We  desire  to  live  looking  forward  to  that  adjudi- 
cation ;  ti;  the  equity  of  God.  We  desire  to  remei;  her  that  thy  love  is  full 
of  justice,  and  that  love  itself  must  be  just.  We  desire  to  believe  in  thee  as 
paternal,  and  as  administering  in  heaveu  by  love,  and  upon  earth ;  and  yet 
that  it  is  not  the  nature  or  possibility  of  love  to  bear  and  clear  the  guilty  ; 
and  that  thou  dost  love  purity,  an  d  that  those  whom  thou  lovest  must  be  pure, 
and  true,  and  good.  And  though  it  is  hard  for  us  to  rise  into  the  posses- 
sion of  holiness,  it  is  not  hard  for  those  to  be  holy  in  whom  thy  spirit 
works,  both  to  will  and  to  do  of  the  good  pleasure  of  God.  Thou  art  not 
standing  aloof  to  command.  Thou  an  in  every  one  of  us,  working  in  us, 
inspiring  us,  brooding  over  us.  speaking  by  the  world  outside,  speaking  by 
thy  providence,  speaking  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  tones  that  the  heart  knows, 
though  the  ear  may  not  hear.  And  {hou  dost  love  us,  and  art  our  faithful 
Friend,  our  Teacher,  our  Guide.  Unless  our  pride  is  obdurate,  and  our 
hearts  are  as  stone,  thou  wilt  surely  win  us  from  all  sin,  and  thou  wilt  pre- 
pare us  for  thine  own  dear  kingdom  of  peace  and  joy,  conveying  us  through 
the  darkness  and  through  the  unknown  portal  of  death,  and  through  the 
airy  way,  home,  with  joy,  unto  our  Father's  house. 

And  now  we  desire,  O  Lord  our  God,  to  renew  our  thanks  for  the  reve- 
lation of  this  knowledge.  By  thy  truth  thou  hast  cleansed  the  heaven 
of  our  fears,  that  went  vagrant  every  whither  to  search  for  spirits  and  de- 
mons and  all  sprites  of  mischief  and  of  evil.  There  are  none,  or  they  are 
beneath  thy  government ;  and  thou  dost  control  them.  Thou  hast  deliver- 
ed us  from  the  fear  of  all  those  unknown  causes  that  terrified  the  ignorant 
in  days  gone  by.  For  the  earth  is  the  Lord's,  and  the  fullness  thereof  All 
laws,  and  all  processes— the  mightiest,  are  still  beneath  thy  sway.  Thou 
sayest,  Go  ;  and  they  go.     Thou  sayest.  Stay  ;  and  they  obey  thy  bidding. 

Now  we  desire.  Lord,  since  thou  art  for  us,  to  fear  none  who  shall  be 
against  us—  to  walk  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord  which  is  the  beginning  of  wis- 
dom, and  the  love  of  God,  which  is  the  end  thereof  And  we  pray  that 
thou  wilt  vouchsafe  to  us,every  day  the  sense  of  thy  presence.  Give  us  the 
monition  of  thy  Spirit.  Give  us  the  secret  communion  of  thy  heart,  that 
hidden  love,  which  is  incommunicable,  and  yet  blessed  in  so  many.  Grant 
unto  us,  we  pray  thee,  that  peace  which  passeth  all  understanding — that 
peace  in  which  fear  cannot  live — that  peace  which  is  the  cure  of  care — that 
peace  which  takes  from  love  its  anxiety,  and  from  bereavement  its  anguish, 
and  from  desolateness  all  its  loneliness.  Grant  that  each  one  may  have  rest- 
ing upon  him  that  peace  which  shall  be  as  the  sunlight  over  all  the  earth, 
bringing  beauty,  bringing  life,  and  bringing  gladness. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  fulfill  all  thy  promises  to  thy  people.  Teach 
them  more  and  more  to  trust  God,  and  to  walk  by  faith,  and  not  by  sight. 
Teach  us  while  we  are  enjoying  the  abundance  of  thy  providence,  and  are 
in  a  large  place,  and  are  prospered,  not  to  become  selfish  and  to  lose  sym- 
pathy for  others.  May  we  remember  Him  who,  though  rich,  for  our  sakes 
became  poor,  that  we  through  his  poverty  might  become  rich.  Grant  that 
we  may  have  his  spirit  in  us. 

And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  us  in  our  households,  and  sanctify  our 
intercourse  one  with  another,  and  exalt  our  afl'ections.  Grant  that  our  daily 
life  may  savor  of  heaven,  and  that  the  perfumes  of  the  Celestial  Garden 
may  be  upon  our  raiment,  as  upon  those  who  have  walked  therein. 

O  Lord,  bless  to-day  those  who  have  gathered  together  in  thy  pres- 
ence in  this  sanctuary, — those  who  are  unknown  to  us,  but  known  to 


FUTURE  PUNISHMENT.  113 

Ihee — strangers  among  strangers.  If  their  hearts  are •nith  thine,  they  are 
with  ours.  They  are  our  brethren.  May  they  feel  it.  May  they  rejoice  in 
rhe  service  of  the  sanctuary,  and  take  home  the  truth  as  God's  message — 
their  God's,  and  our  God's.  And  we  pray  that  this  sacred  bond  of  union  in 
Jesus  Christ  may  interpret  man  to  man,  all  the  world  over.  We  pray  that 
thou  wilt  bless  all  those  in  thy  presence  who  need  thee  to  quicken  them 
against  temptation  ;  to  give  them  songs  in  the  night ;  to  give  them  light  in 
darkness.  May  there  be  those  in  tliy  presence  who  now  shall  discharge 
trouble,  and  cast  their  care  upon  the  Lord,  and  v,  less  to  the  faithfulness 
with  which  his  promises  are  kept  to  them. 

Grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  those  who  are  dull  of  heart  may  be  stirred  up 
to-day.  May  we  all  take  lessons  of  instruction  out  of  thy  Word.  And  v.c 
piay  that  it  may  breathe  more  earnestness  upon  our  lives,  and  moral  solem- 
nity upon  our  sense  of  duty.  And  may  we  do  with  our  might  what  our 
hands  tind  to  do  ;  knowing  that  the  night  cometh  when  no  man  can  work. 

And  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  all  the  churches  that  are  open  to- 
day, and  upon  thy  dear  servants  that  preach  the  Gospel.  Preach  to  them, 
that  they  may  preach  to  the  people.  Spread  abroad  the  knowledge  of  the 
truth  as  it  is  in  Christ  Jesus,  m  every  part  of  our  land.  Turn  back  infidel- 
ity, and  all  immorality,  and  Sabbath-breaking,  and  profanity,  and  avarice, 
and  greediness,  and  violence,  and  misrule,  and  corruption  of  every  name. 

Sanctify  this  great  nation,  and  make  it  a  people  of  God.  We  pray  for 
the  nations  of  the  earth — for  those  that  are  in  darkness,  that  the  light 
promised  may  arise  speedily  upon  them.  We  pray  for  those  that  are  strug- 
gling in  the  midst  of  ignorance  and  superstition,  among  whom  burn  the 
taper  lights  of  the  Gospel.  Oh!  kindle  them  more  and  more  until  they 
shall  glow  like  the  morning  upon  the  mountains. 

We  pray  for  those  nations  that  are  engaged  in  war.  Will  the  Lord 
speedily  make  known  his  own  counsel,  and  fulfill  that  which  he  hath  pur- 
posed of  mercy — for  we  believe  thou  art  ploughing  that  thou  mayest  sow. 
And  though  there  is  blood  in  the  furrow,  there  shall  yet  le  peace;  and 
over  all  the  distracted  land  there  shall  be  yet  better  laWi'lHiltcf  knowledge, 
better  men.     But  may  nations  learn  peace  through  love  and  tLrough  justice. 

And  we  pray  that  intelligence  may  make  the  common  people  wise,  that 
they  may  not  be  led  hither  and  thither  as  sheep  to  the  slaughter.  We  pray 
that  truth  may  prevail,  and  that  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  may  learn 
that  they  are  men,  not  beasts.  May  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  go  forth  ;  and 
may  that  kindling  light,  which  so  long  hath  shone  dimly  in  prophecy,  burst 
forth.  And  little  by  little  may  the  morning  gather  and  pour  abroad  over 
all  the  earth,  until  the  welcome  shout  from  above  shall  tell  us  that  the 
kingdoms  of  this  world  are  become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour, 
Jesus  Christ.  Even  so,  Lord  Jesus,  come  quickly  ;  for  the  whole  earth  doth 
wait  for  thee,  and  long,  and  groan,  and  travail  in  pain. 

And  the  glory  shall  be  to  the  Father,  and  the  Son  and  the  Spirit.    Amen. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Father,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  bless  the  word  of  truth 
which  has  been  spoken.  Grant  that  it  may  do  good  to  every  one  that 
has  heard  it.  Make  us  honest.  Make  us  earnest.  Make  us  solemn.  Make 
us  active.  Inspire  us  to  do  thy  will.  And  let  us  not  be  found  wanting 
when  thou  shalt  come  at  last  and  gather  thine  own,  and  flame  forth  in  the 
glory  of  thy  kingdom,  with  all  thine  angels  about  thee. 

And  we  will  give  the  praise  to  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Spirit. 
Amen, 


VII. 

The  Ministration  of  Pain. 


INVOCATION. 

Reach  forth  thine  hand,  O  thou  that  didst  create  us,  and  bring  us  again  to 
life  and  to  light  this  morning,  by  thy  recreating  spirit,  in  whom  we  live. 
Grant  unto  us  the  sense  of  thy  presence.  And  even  if  our  thought  cannot 
fashion  thy  attributes,  may  we  rejoice  that  thou  art  here,  and  may  we  be 
able  to  behold  thee  inwardly,  that  the  truth  may  be  to  us  as  the  bread  of 
life.  May  we  be  strengthened  by  it  in  thought,  in  duty,  in  aspiration,  in  all 
things.  May  we  be  able  better  to  wage  the  battle  of  life,  after  the  refresh- 
ment and  the  instruction  of  this  day.  Help  us  to  pray  and  to  sing  in  fellow- 
ship one  with  another,  thy  praises.  Help  us  in  every  offlce  of  devotion  and 
instruction ;  and  may  thy  name  be  glorious  in  thy  sanctuary  We  ask  it  for 
Christ's  sake.       Amen. 

7 


THE  MIIISTEATION  OF  PAIK 


"  For  I  reckon,  that  the  suiferings  of  this  present  time  are  not  worthy  to 
be  compared  with  the  glory  whicli  shall  be  revealed  in  us." — Rom.  viii.,  18. 


The  Hebrew  was  not,  according  to  our  modern  interpretation  of  that 
term,  of  a  philosophical  nature.  The  Greek  generated  ideas  in  the  in- 
tellect ;  and  they  pertained  mostly  to  beauty  and  to  the  imagination. 
The  Hebrew,  deep  in  nature,  gave  forth  his  ideas  from  his  heart.  They 
were  therefore  more  moods  of  fervent  emotion.  The  expression  of 
his  philosophy  was  not  the  expression  of  a  train  of  intellectual 
thought.  It  was,  rather,  some  form  of  experience  set  forth.  The  Apos- 
tle Paul,  more  than  any  other  one  of  the  writers  of  the  Bible,  united 
these  two  elements — the  logical,  intellectual  power  of  the  Greek  mind, 
and  the  profound,  emotive  nature  of  the  Hebrew  mind. 

Therefore  you  shall  find  (and  this  is  the  peculiar  difficulty  in  the  in- 
terpretation of  the  Apostle  Paul's  writings)  that  while  he  maintains  a 
certain  exterior  form  of  argument,  orphiloso])hical  statement,  it  h,  as  it 
were,  exploded  here  and  there  continually  by  the  unbidden  and  tumul- 
tuous outpourings  of  his  heart.  And  no  man  can  interpret  correctly 
who  cannot  bring  himself  into  sympathy  both  with  the  inspiration  which 
comes  from  deep  inward  moral  life,  and  with  philosophical  forms  and 
processes. 

Now,  the  eighth  Chapter  of  Romans,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  gi'eatest 
feat  of  moral  philosophy  that  has  ever  been  performed  in  this  Avorld. 
It  is  deeper,  more  comprehensive,  and  therefore  more  difficult  in  the 
form  in  which  it  stands,  than  any  other  part  of  Scripture.  It  may  be 
called  an  epitome  of  PauVs  philosophy  of  the  universe.  Almost  every 
moi-al  question  ever  agitated  finds  some  recognition  here.  Its  very 
difficulties  aiise  from  the  number  and  importance  of  the  truths  which 
pour  into  it ;  for,  like  the  Amazon,  it  drains  a  continent ;  and  evcj-y 
drop  that  falls  upon  the  furthest  mountain,  or  along  the  valleys,  finds 
its  way  hither.  And  so,  I  might  almost  say  that  the  Bible  forms  a 
water-shed  on  either  side,  and  that  it  all  runs  into  the  eighth  Chapter 
of  Romans,  for^epth,  and  width,  and  momentum,  and  for  the  endless- 
ness of  the  ocean  into  which  it  flows. 

StiNnAY  MoRNiNo,  Oct.  23, 187a  LES80N :  KoM Axs  VIII.,  18-39.   Hymkb  (Plvmouth  Collection) : 
No3.  199,  905,  1257.  ' 


116  TEE  MINISTRATION  OF  PAIN. 

I  have  selected  from  this  chapter  Paul's  doctrine  of  suffering  as  the 
subject  of  remark  this  morning.  From  the  first  verse  to  the  seventeenth 
of  this  chapter,  Paul  illustrates  the  conflict  that  is  going  on  between 
the  faculties  which  represent  man's  physical  condition,  and  the  nobler 
faculties  which  have  been  developed  above  them.  It  is  the  great  battle 
of  the  spirit  against  the  flesh,  which  has  been  going  on  since  the  begin- 
ning of  time.  And  the  pointings  of  recent  science,  instead  of  sweeping 
anything  away,  are  going  to  corroborate  in  an  extraordinary  manner 
that  very  line  of  truth  and  of  argument  which  the  Apostle  instituted, 
from  the  first  verse  to  the  seventeenth — although  he  had  not  any  fore- 
sight of  it  in  its  scientific  developments  as  we  have  in  our  day.  There 
is  a  strife  between  that  which  a  man  has  by  virtue  of  his  animal  con- 
stitution— his  animal  appetites  and  passions — and  that  which  he  has 
by  virtue  of  his  higher  nature,  by  which  he  becomes  a  son  of  God. 
These  two  things,  associated — these  two  conditions,  one  working  out- 
wardly and  downwai'd,  and  the  other  inwardly  and  upward  through 
the  invisible ;  one  taking  cognizance  of  visible  objects,  and  the  other 
of  interior  truths — have  been  for  ages  in  mighty  conflict.  The  flesh  has 
striven  against  the  spirit,  and  the  spirit  against  the  flesh.  Each  of 
them  has  been  seeking  to  come  into  the  ascendancy. 

In  the  seventeeth  and  eighteenth  verses,  he  sets  forth  the  ultimate 
result  of  this  conflict  on  the  scale  of  the  whole  world,  and  all  time. 

The  Spirit  itself  beareth  witness  with  our  spirit  that  we  are  the  children 
of  God  [that  is,  iadividuals  are,  and  the  race  are.]  " 

It  is  not  a  bestial  race  because  it  has  so  much  in  common  with 
beasts.  It  is  not  a  physical  and  animal  race  because  it  has  so  many 
alliances  with  the  animal  condition,  and  has  had  so  much  experience 
and  contact  with  it.  There  is  yet,  in  this  great,  hard,  coarse,  animal- 
ized,  sensuous,  ignominious  human  family,  a  daring  spirit.  They  are, 
notwithstanding  theii'  lower  nature,  sons  of  God.  The  spiritual  ele- 
ment is  in  them. 

"  And  if  children,  then  heirs  ;  heirs  of  God,  and  joint  heirs  with  Christ ; 
if  so  be  that  we  suffer  with  him,  that  we  may  be  also  glorified  together." 

Have  you  never  noticed  how  Beethoven  thinks  in  his  symphonies ; 
how,  the  grand  movement  sweeping  on  as  if  it  were  the  sound  of 
winds  and  birds  in  some  mighty  forest,  there  will  suddenly,  as  it  were 
far  away,  remotely,  come  in  one  single,  simple,  wailing  note,  while 
everything  is  going  on  ?  And  then  before  you  know  it,  he  has  modu- 
lated the  whole  symphony,  and  it  follows  that  one  note,  and  conforms 
to  it,  and  develops  the  new  theme,  opening  up  in  another  sphere  with 
a  majesty  and  grandeur  incomparable.  And  so,  here,  that  word  sufer 
is  the  note  that  is  itruck  in  the  course  of  argument.  And  now  Paul 
turns  and  runs  out  after  that,  and  opens  it  up,  and  unfolds  it,  in  a  most 
wonderful  manner.     He  has  been  saying,  "  Here  is  the  animal  life,  but 


THE  MimSTRA  TION  OF  PAIN.  117 

there  is  a  splritnal  one;  and  the  spiritual  life  is  working  against  it,  and 

striving  to  get  the  uppermost.     And  the  created  world  is  a  ^^'itncss 

■that  we  are  the  children  of  God.     And  there  is  the  testimony  of  the 

spirit  that  we  are  Christ's  if  we  suiFer  with  him."     Ah  !  how  significant 

that  word  suffer.     Then  he  says, 

"  For  I  reckon,  that  the  sufferings  of  this  present  time  are  not  worthy  to 
be  compared  with  the  glory  which  shall  be  revealed  in  us." 

We  are  the  children  of  God.  Our  future  is  incomparable  gloi-v. 
And  the  instrument  by  which  we  are  going  to  be  brought  to  it  is  suf- 
fering.    That  was  the  thought  which  lay  in  his  mind. 

Then  he  sketches  the  relation  of  this  experience  of  suffering  to  the 

divine  idea  in  creation,  and  brings  out,  first,  that  suffering  inheres  in 

the  nature  of  that  plan  which  God  developes  in  the  life  of  this  globe, 

where  he  says, 

"The  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature  [it  would  be  better  translated, 
the  earnest  expectation  oi  creation]  waiteth  for  the  manifestation  of  the  sons 
of  God." 

The  whole  world  is  aspiring  to  that  unknown  sonship,  that  spiritual 
divinity,  in  every  man.  The  whole  creation  is  pointing  toward  it  in 
certain  ways,  and  longing  for  it.  For,  "the  creature,"  Paul  says, 
"  was  made  subject  to  vanity" — that  is  to  say,  to  weakness,  to  aber- 
ration, to  sin.  Everything  that  comes  short  of  the  ideal  creation  was 
made  subject  to  this,  "  not  willingly,  but  by  reason  of  Him  who  hath 
subjected  the  same  in  hope."  This  suffering,  and  collision,  and  at- 
trition, and  all  the  j^henomena  which  fall  out  under  it,  are  a  part  of 
God's  design,  the  apostle  declares.  They  are  not  accidents.  They  are 
not  interpolations.  They  are  not  discords,  thrown  in  without  the 
musician's  knowing  it.  They  are  not  blots  on  the  manuscript,  that 
have  to  be  written  over,  or  under,  or  scratched  out.  They  are  a  part 
of  the  organic  design  of  God  in  the  creation  of  the  world.  When,  far 
back  in  the  eternal  ages.  He  made  the  globe.  He  did  not  mean  to 
make  it  a  round,  golden,  bright  globe,  full  of  ethereal  and  perfected 
spirits.  He  meant  to  make  it  just  as  He  did  make  it — a  globe  that 
should  begin  with  nothing,  and  unfold,  and  unfold,  with  mighty  stripes, 
and  with  mighty  sufferings,  and  with  mighty  victories  ultimately,  and 
with  perfect  glory  and  joy  in  the  end.  And  thus,  suffering  creation 
"  was  made  subject  to  vanity,  not  willingly,"  not  of  its  own  accord,  not 
of  its  own  volition,  but  by  the  fore-ordination  of  God.  By  the  divine 
decree  it  was  made  just  as  it  was  made.     So  the  apostle  declares. 

"Because  the  creation  itself  also  shall  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of 
corruption  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God." 

This  world  has  not  seen  its  history.     "Vou  must  not  judge  of  what 

is  to  take  place  in  the  long  run  by  the  opening  of  the  battle  which  we 


118  THE  MINISTRA  HON  OF  PAIN. 

have  but  just  seen — for  the  ages  have  only  opened  it.  In  the  end  there 
will  be  a  triumphant  consummation.     So  says  the  apostle. 

'■For  we  know  [and  here  comes  in  a  kind  of  sad,  minor  strain  following 
that  twenty-first  verse  of  jubilation]  that  the  whole  creation  groaneth,  and 
travaileth  in  pain  together  until  now." 

This  is  only  a  latent  use  of  the  thought  which  Christ  expressed  in 
the  sixteenth  chapter  of  John's  Gospel,  and  the  twenty -first  verse  : 

"  A  woman  when  she  is  in  travail  hath  sorrow,  because  her  hour  is 
come ;  but  as  soon  as  she  is  delivered  of  the  child,  she  remembereth  no 
more  the  anguish,  for  joy  that  a  man  is  born  into  the  world." 

The  first  clasp  of  the  babe  in  her  bosom  pays  her  for  every  groan 
and  for  every  anguish.  The  rchole  creation  groans  and  travails  in 
pain.  It  is  bringing  forth.  But  when  it  shall  have  brought  forth, 
it  will  not  be  a  man-child  merely — it  will  be  the  man-child  Jesus 
Christ.  It  is  God  manifest  in  man  that  shall  be  the  ultimalion.  "We 
are  born  in  a  period  Avhich  shows  the  labor-pain.  It  is  the  throe  of  com- 
ing spiritual  birth  that  agitates  the  globe  and  the  race  of  men.  This 
is  the  apostolic  thought,  evidently. 

He  also  shows  that  it  will  not  end  in  confusion.  It  is  not  dis- 
orderly because  it  is  dark.  The  pain-bearing  world  has  a  glorious 
future.  The  suffering  of  God's  people  will  by  and  by  glow  in  heaven 
with  a  light  compared  with  which  all  we  know  of  glory  on  earth  will 
seem  insignificant. 

After  the  storm  has  brooded  all  day  long,  and  hung  low,  so  that 
the  clouds  shut  out  all  forms,  and  there  was  but  gray  and  haze,  have 
vou  never  seen  the  wind  shift  and  roll  away  the  clouds,  and  the  clouds 
bank  themselves  up  and  sweep  out,  so  that  at  last  the  sun,  toward 
sunset,  struck  them  at  the  proper  angle,  and  all  that  had  been  so  dark 
nnd  gloomy  thi'ough  the  day  began  to  light  itself  up,  and  stood  like  a 
heavenly  portal  glowing  wide,  and  the  glories  began  to  flash  out  on 
those  banks  that  now  had  lifted  themselves  up  into  the  very  bright- 
ness of  heaven?  And  yet  it  was  the  same  thing  that  at  one  time  made 
the  darkness,  and  that  at  another  time  seemed  to  be  the  glory  of  heaven 
itself 

The  son'ows  and  trials  and  mischiefs  of  this  world  are  dark  enough 
in  the  passing,  and  in  the  brooding;  but  the  time  is  coming  when  the 
light  of  God's  countenance  shall  be  so  let  in  upon  them  that  they  shall 
be  marvels  and  magnitudes  of  glory  and  of  beauty. 

And  then  comes  thai  anthem  which  it  seems  to  me  might  well  be 
chanted  in  every  Christian  church  at  least  once  on  every  Sabbath. 
After  the  Apostle  has  gone  through,  in  his  peculiar  way,  half  feeling, 
half  reasoning,  much  being  sketched  and  hinted,  and,  indeed,  leaving 
vast  unexplored  depths,  then,  as  it  were,  when  the  mind  has  traveled 
over,  and  got  on  the  other  side  of  the  question,  he  breaks  out  and  says, 


THE  MINISTRATION  OF  PAIN.  119 

"  "Who  shall  separate  us  from  the  lq,ve  of  Christ  ?  shall  tribulation,  or 
distress,  or  persecution,  or  famine,  or  nakedness,  or  peril,  or  sword  V 

He  has  been  speaking  about  the  history  of  this  world ;  about  tlio 
strife  between  the  good  and  the  bad,  between  truth  and  falsehood,  be- 
tween the  higher  elements  and  the  lower.  He  has  been  saying  that 
this  is  a  part  of  the  constitution  of  things.  He  has  been  saying  tliat 
the  ages  are  waiting  for  the  development  of  the  meaning  of  it.  Ho 
has  been  saying  that  the  complete  disclosure  shall  by  and  by  come ; 
and  that  then  the  glory  revealed  shall  be  such  that  all  the  sufferings 
M^hich  we  have  been  called  to  endure  shall  not  be  worthy  of  mention 
in  comparison  with  it.  He  has  been  saying  that  there  shall  be  no 
forces,  no  fate,  no  intervention,  nothing,  that  shall  stand  between  God 
and  the  consummation  of  these  things.  He  has  been  saying  that  God, 
having  declared  it,  shall  fulfill  it  And  then,  when  he  has  finished  that 
long  testimony  and  argument,  he  says, 

"  Who  [with  all  this  before  onr  minds — for  that  is  the  force  of  it]  shall 
separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ?  shall  tribulation,  or  distress,  or  perse- 
cution, or  famine,  or  nakedness,  or  peril,  or  sword  ?  As  it  is  written,  for 
thy  sake  we  are  killed  all  the  day  long ;  we  are  accounted  as  sheep  for  the 
slaughter.  Nay,  in  all  these  things  we  are  more  than  conquerors,  through 
Him  that  loved  us.  For  I  am  persuaded  that,  neither  death,  nor  life,  nor 
angels,  nor  principalities,  nor  powers,  nor  things  present,  nor  things  to 
come,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor  anything  in  creation,  [for  that  is  the  mean- 
ing of  the  phrase  nor  any  other  creature,}  shall  separate  us  from  the  love  of 
God  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord." 

I  propose  to  translate  some  few  of  these  thoughts  into  forms  and 
language  which  will  fit  our  experience,  and  into  the  expression  of  the 
philosophy  of  our  time. 

Pain  is  but  an  inflection  of  sensibility.  Sensibility  is  the  evi- 
dence of  the  existence  of  nerve;  and  nerve-life  is  the  distino-uishing 
difference  between  the  vegetable  and  the  animal.  As  you  go  down 
and  nerve  decreases,  so  its  capacity,  and  so  its  quantity  of  existence, 
decreases.  Or,  taking  the  reverse,  as  you  go  up  from  the  very  lowest 
development  of  life,  you  will  find  that  you  come  to  a  new  development 
of  that  existence  which  we  call  nerve,  but  which  is  the  ground  and  root 
of  sensibility,  whether  of  pleasure  or  of  pain.  Pleasure  and  pain  are  the 
two  factors  of  sensation ;  and  they  grow  first  to  consciousness  ;  then 
to  volition ;  then  to  character  ;  and  so  to  final  ripeness. 

Pain  is  not,  then,  a  discord,  nor  an  accident.  It  is  a  part  of  the  orig- 
inal constitution  of  things.  If  you  imagine  a  being,  as  the  world  has 
been  made,  that  has  no  pain,  you  imagine  a  being  that  has  no  exist- 
ence as  a  sentient  or  possibly  intelligent  creature.  Why  this  is  so  ; 
why  God  should  have  chosen  to  create  the  world  as  he  has  created  it, 
no  man  can  ask.  The  only  true  philosophical  question  is,  How  has 
God  made  the  world  ?    It  is  not  philosophical  to  ask,  Why  did  he  make 


i  20  TEE  MINISTRATION  OF  PAIN. 

it  so?  for  there  is  the  point  where  by  searching  no  man  can  find  ont 
God.  But  Paul  declares  that  this  condition  of  things  whereby  pain 
came  into  the  world,  was  not  from  the  willingness  of  the  creature — 
— not  from  the  volition  of  the  man.  This  was  instrumental ;  that  is,  it 
was  concerned  in  it.  But  the  power  of  susceptibility,  which  is,  in  other 
words,  the  organization  of  the  nervous  system — that  brought  it  in.  The 
less  pain,  the  less  life-capacity.  The  less  pain-power,  the  less  life-power. 

If  you  go  to  the  lower  orders,  you  shall  find  that  they  sufier  very 
little.  But  then  they  live  very  little.  If  you  go  down  to  the  ox,  the 
ox  does  not  sufier  as  a  man  does.  He  has  no  anxiety,  except  the  most 
transient  fear,  on  occasion  :  he  never  meditates  fear.  The  ox  has  no 
exquisite  sufi\?ring.  If  he  fails  of  food  he  suffers  a  little  hunger ;  but 
his  range  of  sufiering  is  very  small.  And  his  range  of  enjoyment  is 
very  small,  too.  If  you  go  below  him,  you  will  come  to  a  plane  where 
there  is  still  less  sufiering,  until  you  reach  the  point  where  life  can  be 
divided  up,  and  where  if  you  cut  a  worm  to  pieces,  each  section  makes 
oft"  with  itself,  and  furnishes  itself  with  new  legs,  and  new  feeders,  and 
a  new  stomach,  and  everything  that  it  needs,  and  goes  on  again  with 
a  separate  existence  just  as  well  as  if  it  had  not  been  touched. 

If  you  go  down  below  that  to  the  still  lower  forms — to  the  jelly- 
fish, and  such  like — they  seem  to  be  mere  pulpy  masses,  almost  with- 
out any  sensibility  or  susceptibility  of  suffering.  As  you  go  down,  pain 
grows  less  and  less ;  and  so  does  life-force,  and  so  does  capacity,  show- 
ing that  pain  is  not  accidental — that  it  has  something  to  do  with  that 
organization  by  which  come  growth,  complexity,  dignity,  magnitude, 
and  divinity.     And  we  shall  see,  probably  more  clearly,  what  it  is. 

The  progress  of  life  upwards,  then,  is  marked  by  capacity  of  suffer- 
ing ;  that  is,  by  susceptibility  ;  by  the  number  of  faculties  which  begin 
to  act  in  conjunction  or  coordination  ;  by  the  variety  of  the  relations 
to  the  outward  world  and  to  each  other  which  so  many  faculties  place 
us  in. 

Pain  and  suflfering  are,  in  the  actual  experience  of  this  world,  regu- 
lative, disciplinary,  and  formative.  They  are  not  accidental.  They  are 
not  without  a  tendency.  They  tend  to  regulate  and  rule  men.  They 
tend  to  discipline  and  instruct  men.  They  tend  to  mould  and  confirm 
men  in  higher  manhood.  And  suffering  and  joy,  working  together, 
are  God's  two  schoolmasters,  as  it  were.  Suffering  is  the  man,  and  joy 
is  the  woman — the  husband  and  the  wife.  One  is  schoolmaster  in  one 
way,  and  the  other  in  a  corresponding  and  cooperative  way.  They 
regulate,  they  discipline  and  they  fashion  men.  These  are  the  great 
factors  which  inhere  in  nature,  and  by  which  the  scheme  of  God  in  the 
universe  is  being  unfolded  and  earned  ou  to  its  final  consummation  and 
tfiumph. 


THE  MINISTRA  TION  OF  FAIN.  121 

Now  let  us  specify  under  this  general  statement. 
1.  Bodily  pain  is  the  lowest  form  of  sufiering.  It  is  of  the  least 
direct  moral  value.  Yet  it  is  indispensable.  Where  men  are  seeking 
to  extend  their  range  of  existence,  but  are  ignorant,  it  must  needs  be, 
if  pain  be  regulative  and  disciplinary  and  formative,  that  in  the  pro- 
cess of  learning  how  to  carry  even  the  body,  pain  will  be  present  as 
well  i'.  pleasure,  and  both  the  one  and  the  other  will  take  man  in 
charge.  Animals  know  but  very  little.  They  are  not  susceptible  of 
education  except  in  the  very  smallest  degree.  But  men  develop  ;  and 
pain  with  them  occupies  a  much  larger  space.  It  mingles  far  more 
with  their  experience.  But  as  they  develop  in  the  first  instance,  in 
civilized  nations,  and  indeed  in  childhood,  so  far  as  the  individuals 
themselves  are  concerned,  they  are  ignorant  of  the  conditions  of  the 
laws  which  surround  them.  Pain  begins  its  office-work  from  the  very 
earliest  period ;  and  it  is  the  concommitant  of  the  tendency  to  en- 
large one's  being.  Suffering  is  that  which  comes  by  the  attempt  to 
live  more,  larger,  more  variously,  more  gloriously ;  but  as  we  do  not 
know  how  to  do  it  beforehand,  we  have  to  find  om-  way;  and  findiu<>- 
our  way,  we  strike  against  this  law  and  that  law,  against  this  decree 
and  that  decree,  some  of  which  respond  in  music,  some  in  discord, 
some  in  pleasure,  and  some  in  pain.  But  we  gather  from  both  sides  ; 
for  we  are  learning,  practicing,  finding  our  Avay  up  gradually,  througli 
the  ministration  of  suffering  and  pleasure. 

Suffering  is  derived  from  the  lower  forms  of  rnind.  From  striv- 
ings, anxious  forethought,  care,  the  trouble  of  discriminating  acquaint- 
ances and  professions  and  labors,  that  are  incident  to  persons  who  are 
seeking  to  make  their  way  complexly  for  themselves  and  for  their 
households  in  a  great  world  like  this — from  these  things  the  mind  suf- 
fers.    It  gets  tired,  which  is  suffering. 

It  suffers,  also,  by  ignorance  of  how  to  use  itself,  as  it  were  tang- 
ling its  faculties  together.  It  suffers,  likewise,  from  ignorance  of  the 
future.  It  suffers  also  by  the  handling  of  a  man's  self  in  all  the  rel;i- 
tions  of  secular  life,  since  he  has  no  intuitions  and  no  instincts  such  as 
the  lower  animals  have.  Thus  is  brought  upon  men  a  great  amount 
of  suffering.     It  is  the  lowest  form :  nevertheless,  it  is  a  form. 

Now,  this  suffering  is  a  teacher.  It  is  a  monitor.  It  is  a  com- 
panion that,  going  along  the  way,  is  perpetually  pointing  out  the  good 
and  the  evil,  the  right  and  the  wrong.  Pleasure  and  pain  are  perpet- 
ual interpretations  of  the  law  of  rectitude. 

2.  Then  comes  a  larger  section  of  suffering ;  viz.,  that  which  arises 
from  disappointment  of  Inordinate  or  irregular  desires.  Men  are  only- 
larger  children.  As  children  cry  for  what  the  parents  know  they  must 
not  have,  and  suffer  because  they  are  not  allowed  to  suffer  still  more  j  so 


122  THE  MINISTRATION  OF  PAIN. 

men,  throngli  their  ignorance  or  immoderation  of  various  kinds,  are  per- 
petually seeking  for  things  which  would  be  their  destruction,  or  would 
lead  to  greater  mischief  than  the  penalties  by  which  they  are  denied. 
There  is  pride  of  life ;  and  men  run  out  after  the  things  that  will  grat- 
ify that  pride,  with  an  eagerness  far  bej^ond  that  with  Avhich  they  seek 
the  things  that  will  gratify  their  moral  sense.  Men  are  looking  out 
in  this  life  after  things  that  they  want,  but  that  they  do  not  need. 
Vanity,  self-indulgence  in  pleasure,  indolence,  ease — these  are  things 
which  are  aimed  at.  In  other  words,  men  are  ignorant  as  to  how  they 
shall  build.  They  are  determined  to  build  the  foundations  of  their 
life,  and  to  seek  their  happiness,  in  ways  which  are  contrary  to  the 
very  end  of  that  happiness,  because  contrary  to  the  very  end  of  their 
moral  development  and  character.  And  this  is  the  origin  of  disap- 
pointments. Two-thirds  of  all  the  disappointments  of  life  are  not  sent 
by  a  special  Providence.  Men  butt  against  them.  They  hunt  them 
for  themselves.  They  seek  them  out  in  their  own  folly.  And  when 
pride  is  denied,  we  marvel  at  the  mystery.  Pride  would  be  emperor ; 
it  would  be  pope ;  it  would  be  all  things  ;  it  would  be  God  in  man, 
without  the  divine  greatness  and  purity;  it  would  be  supreme  in  power, 
and  insatiable  in  demand ;  but  this  is  not  according  to  the  law  of  the 
universe.  Pride,  so  long  as  there  is  a  benevolent  Providence,  must 
not  be  allowed  to  govern  ;  and  there  come  disappointments.  And 
men  wonder  and  marvel  as  to  what  is  the  origin  of  so  much  suffering. 
It  is  very  plain  what  the  origin  of  so  much  suiFering  is.  Suppose  a 
man  should  take  a  gimlet-hole  as  large  as  his  little  finger,  and  insist  on 
crowding  his  thumb  into  it  ?  And  suppose,  as  it  excoriated  his  flesh, 
he  should  stand  and  say,  "  What  is  the  reason  that  this  hurts  me  so  ? 
It  is  a  mystery  to  me  that  my  thumb  aches  in  the  way  it  does  T  And 
yet,  a  man  takes  his  pride,  and  attempts  to  force  it  through  life  in 
t-uch  a  way  as  to  crowd  it  into  places  where  it  has  no  business  to  be, 
i\\\(\  out  of  all  true  relations  ;  and  then  wonders  why  he,  of  all  men,  is 
singled  out  for  so  much  pain  and  suffering  ! 

3.  So,  also,  our  affections  groio  inordinate,  and  seek  to  clothe  them- 
selves with  conditions  that  are  not  consistent  with  the  relations  which 
every  one  sustains  to  those  about  him,  and  to  his  circumstances.  And 
no  one  can  determine  so  well  as  God  what  are  those  relations,  and  what 
is  the  fulfilling  of  them.  The  perpetual  attempt  to  use  single  faculties, 
and  those  not  the  highest,  out  of  all  proportion,  and  out  of  Avise  direc- 
tion, and  out  of  proper  coordination,  explains  largely  the  troubles  and 
the  dissatisfactions  of  men  in  life.  We  do  not  need  any  prophet  to  in- 
terpret to  us  that  the  sufferings  which  they,  I  was  going  to  say,  "enjoy," 
ai'e  sufferings  which  are  remedial,  which  are  occasionally  medicinal,  and 
which  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  evidence  of  malign  fate,  or  of  evil  in 


TEE  MimSTRATION  OF  PAIK  123 

the  world;  but  which  are  to  be  regarded  as  belonging  to  that  constitu- 
tion of  things  by  which  God  does  not  mean  to  let  men  distort  tliem- 
Belves,  and  stands  saying  to  each  faculty,  "In  your  own  proportion  ;  iu 
your  own  channel ;  in  j^our  own  order."  When  men  are  not  out  of 
line,  pain  is  not  there ;  but  when  they  are,  pain  is  there.  Pain  is  proof 
that  a  man  is  wrong,  under  such  circumstances. 

4.  Man's  vanity  is  profuse,  protean,  full  of  all  illusions.  "  Regular, 
irregular,  and  defective,"  as  the  verbs  used  to  be  iu  my  hapless  da3's, 
is  vanity,  growing  more  and  more  voluminous  from  the  beginning,  and 
in  every  direction.  And  if  there  be  an  order  in  the  universe,  and  iu 
indi\'idual  development,  under  which  human  vanity  cannot  be  per- 
mitted to  become  supreme,  sucking  out  the  nutriment  of  eveiy  other 
part  of  the  soul ;  and  a  man  seeks  through  vanity  that  which  he  can 
get  only  through  other  faculties,  and,  foiling  to  realize  that  which  is 
sought  because  he  seeks  it  in  wrong  ways,  he  marvels  that  he  suffers, 

, — do  you  marvel  that  he  does?  Ought  he  not  to  suffer?  Is  it  not  a 
benefit  to  any  man  who  seeks  to  destroy  his  nature,  that  a  decree  of 
God  stands  and  says,  "  Thus  far,  and  no  farther,"  and  with  buffet 
shoves  him  off  from  his  own  harm  ?  And  is  it  not  benevolence,  as 
well  ? 

5.  There  is  another  class  of  sufferings  which  perhaps  are  harder  to 
bear,  and  upon  which  the  same  remarks  will  cast  some  light.  I  mean 
the  sufferings  of  bereavements  and  of  affection.  We  love ;  and  we 
are  placed  in  circumstances  developing  great  tenacity  and  fruitfulness 
of  love  ;  as,  for  instance,  the  love  of  parents  for  their  children.  We 
are  cautioned  against  idolatry — Avhich  is  a  wise  caution.  ISTever- 
theless,  in  the  order  of  Providence  and  of  nature,  a  little  child,  know- 
ing nothing,  is  to  live,  as  it  were,  off  from  and  out  of  his  parents;  and 
they  are  obliged,  so  to  speak,  to  enwrap  him.  They  throw  themselves 
around  about  him  in  order  that  he  may  feed  out  of  their  -wisdom,  ten- 
derness, and  instruction  and  guidance.  Nor  is  it  possible  for  two  na- 
tures to  conform  themselves  to  the  necessities  of  an  inferior  nature  in 
this  way,  and  do  it  for  one,  two,  and  many  years,  and,  when  sudlcn- 
ly  this  object  of  their  affection  is  taken  away  from  them,  not  feel  an 
an  ache  and  a  suffering  for  which  there  are  no  words  in  languaoe — 
and  for  which  no  words  ai-e  needed,  because  ten  thousand  hearts 
interpi-et,  from  what  they  have  felt,  the  meaning  of  this  suffering. 
And  it  seems  strange  that  this  should  be  so.  There  are  many  points 
of  publicity  in  it.  There  is  no  one  place  where  questions  fly  so 
thick,  and  where  they  are  so  difficult  to  answer,  as  here.  If  it  is  saiil, 
"This  child  died  by  a  violation  of  natural  law,  and  if  you  had  ob- 
served natural  law  the  child  would  have  lived,"  the  answer  immedi- 
ately is,  "  Then  why  did  I  not  have  natural  law  revealed  to  me  I     I 


12-1  TEE  MINISTMATION  OF  PAIN. 

did  the  best  I  could.  I  rose  early  and  sat  up  late.  What  sort  of  pa- 
ternal love  is  it  which  could  leave  me  in  ignorance  of  that  on  which 
the  life  of  my  child  depended  ?  Across  the  way  is  a  child  that  is  poor 
and  sickly  and  abused ;  and  if  it  grows  up,  it  will  probably  grow  up  to 
mischief,  and  live  in  misery  all  its  life  long.  My  child  was  healthy,  it 
was  well  organized,  it  had  hereditary  tendencies  of  good ;  and  I 
^\'atchcd  over  it,  and  spent  my  whole  honest  endeavor  to  do  well  by 
it.     And  yet  it  was  taken." 

You  cannot  answer  such  questions.  If  you  descend  to  human  phi- 
losophy in  this  matter,  all  that  you  can  say,  is,  that  we  are  living  in 
ill  this  world  for  another,  and  that  trans^^lantation  often  takes  place 
by  the  ministration  of  natural  law,  just  as  much  as  by  God's  right 
liand.  It  takes  place  according  to  a  decree  and  a  purpose  which  have 
not  been  revealed,  and  of  which  we  know  nothing  now,  though  we 
shall  understand  it  hereafter.  No  man  can  tell  why  his  companion 
should  be  taken  so  suddenly,  when  there  was  every  reason  why  she 
should  remain.  No  man  can  tell  why  a  person  who  is  useful  and  appa- 
lently  indispensible  in  the  community,  as  a  Christian,  should  be  trans- 
})lanted  prematurely — that  is,  before  the  time.  No  one  can  tell  why 
a  child  that  is  promising  and  virtuous,  and  in  whom  centre  the  hopes 
of  the  parent,  should  be  taken  before  it  has  grown  up.  There  is  in 
human  philosophy  no  answer  to  these  questions  that  can  satisfy  the 
heart.  The  only  reply  that  can  be  made  to  them,  is,  that  the  suffering 
is  momentary ;  that  the  branch  that  is  broken  here  will  have  its  full 
growth  there ;  that  the  consummation  is  only  delayed ;  that  children 
whose  life  is  cut  short  in  this  world  will  have  a  new  life  under  better 
auspices  in  the  world  to  come ;  that  what  we  lose  on  this  side  of  the 
grave  we  shall  have  again  when  we  reach  the  other  side.  There  comes 
in  a  lai-ger  sense  of  life.  There  comes  in  a  thought  of  expansion  and 
opening. 

There  is  many  and  many  a  man  who  never  knew  that  there  were 
more  than  twenty-five  thousand  miles  in  the  universe  until  love  sent 
him  a  mourning  pilgrim  seeking  after  the  absent  one.  Then  he  leai'ned 
that  there  was  an  infinity.  For,  when  a  soul  stricken  through  and 
through,  goes  mourning,  and  saying,  "  Where  is  it  ?  where  is  it  ?"  and 
the  sun  says,  "  Not  in  me,"  and  night  says,  "Not  in  me,"  and  the  grave 
mutely  says,  "  Not  in  me,"  and  God  says,  "  Here,"  and  the  Spirit  and 
the  Bride  say,  "  Come," — oh !  then  the  heart  learns  circumnavigation 
and  largeness,  and  has  restored  to  it  in  the  long  run,  in  the  augmented 
sense  of  love,  and  in  the  power  of  augmented  moral  being,  more  than 
has  been  taken  from  it.  Absence  is  for  a  day,  but  knowledge  is  for 
eternity. 

"  No  chastening,"  says  the  apostle,  "  for  the  present  seemeth  to  be 


TEE  MimSTRA  TION  OF  PAIN.  125 

joyous,  but  grievous."  God  is  not  like  foolish  parents  who  take  the 
spoofn  of  noxioas  medicine,  put  it  to  the  lips  of  the  child,  and  say, 
lying,  "Take  it,  my  dear;  it  is  sweet  and  good."  God  is  like  an 
honest  parent,  who  says  to  the  child,  "  It  is  very  bitter,  my  dear ;  but 
you  must  take  it;  for  it  will  make  you  feel  better  by-and-by."     God 

says, 

"  Now  no  chastenirig  for  the  present  seemet  ••  to  l)e  joyoup,  but  grievous  ; 
nevertheless,  afterward  it  yieldeth  the  peaceable  iruit  of  righteousness  unto 
them  which  are  exercised  thereby  [that  is,  who  are  disciplined  by  itj." 

So  it  is  of  bereavements,  and  of  all  such  sufferings. 

6.  Then  there  is  a  sufiering  that  is  still  higher — for  we  have 
already  gone  very  high.  There  is  a  form  of  sufiering  which  arises 
from  the  conflict  of  good  and  evil  in  ourselves,  or  the  harmoniz- 
ation of  a  man's  mind  or  soul  by  giving  the  control  of  it  to  his  higher 
nature.  This  is  what  is  called  self-government.  It  is  also  called 
self-denial,  which  is,  doing  better  things  when  it  would  be  more 
agreeable  to  us  to  do  worse  things.  When  a  man  would  merely  ger- 
minate, and  he  arouses  himself  to  be  a  thinker,  that  is  self-denial.  In 
other  words,  it  is  giving  power  to  the  intellect,  instead  of  giving  power 
to  the  flesh.  When  it  would  be  more  pleasant  for  a  man  to  follow  his 
fancj^,  and  he  is  put  upon  following  his  moral  sense,  that  is  self-denial. 
And  what  is  it  but  giving  the  control  of  the  man's  life  to  his  conscience, 
instead  of  to  his  self-love  ?  When  a  man  would  enjoy  his  own  pleas- 
ure by  sitting  at  home  in  the  quiet  covert  of  his  household,  and  he  goes 
out  to  seek  and  to  save  those  who  are  lost,  to  rescue,  and  teach,  and 
bear  the  troubles  of  those  who  are  wayward  and  ignorant  and  tried, 
that  is  self  denial.  And  what  is  that  but  teaching  a  man  to  act  from 
the  better  part  of  his  nature,  rather  than  from  his  selfish  instincts'?  You 
practice  self-denial  only  when  you  act  from  a  higher  faculty  though 
you  are  tempted  to  act  from  a  lower  one.  When  you  act  from  a  spir- 
itual feeling,  though  you  are  tempted  to  act  from  a  mere  animal  one  ; 
when,  if  you  are  tempted  to  act  from  the  baser  elements  of  your  bein^, 
there  is  something  in  you  which  says,  "  Act  as  a  man  ha\ing  a  love- 
breeding  nature  ;"  when  you  rise  up  into  your  higher  faculties,  and  act 
in  them,  then  you  are  practicing  self-denial. 

But  here  comes  in  the  solution  of  one  of  the  mysteries  of  this  life  ; 
viz. :  that  pain  and  glorious  joy  are  quite  reconcilable.  There  is  not 
a  man  here,  I  hope,  who  does  not  know  what  it  is  to  suffer  and  yet 
feel  happier  because  he  suffers.  No  man  ever  does  a  thing  that  re- 
quu-es  particular  exertion  and  makes  him  smart  in  the  doing,  and  yet 
that  is  right,  that  he  does  not  have  the  testimony  of  his  reason  and 
conscience  that  it  was  the  thing  to  do,  and  is  not  happier  for  hav- 
ing done  it.      Many  a  man,  under  such  circumstances,  is  able  to 


126  THE  MINISTRATION  OF  PAIN. 

sr.y,  "While  I  suffered  pain  down  where  my  lower  nature  is,  up 
where  my  higher  nature  is  I  was  gloriously  glad."  In  the  Bible  you 
will  find,  all  the  way  through,  representations  of  men  who  rejoiced  in 
infirmity;  who  were  glad  for  suffering;  who  were  happy  because  they 
were  miserable  ;  but  the  happiness  and  gladness  and  rejoicing  must 
always  be  with  the  condition  that  if  there  are  two  kinds  of  faculties, 
one  higher  and  one  lower,  the  lower  one  suffers  because  the  upper  one 
has  gained  a  victory  over  it.  The  upper  one  will  be  chanting  its  vic- 
tory all  the  time,  and  the  moanings  of  the  lower  one  will  scarcely  be 
lieard.  If  selfishness  is  wounded  you  will  smart ;  but  benevolence  will 
be  glad  enough;  and  the  gladness  will  more  than  make  i;p  for  the 
smarting.  If  you  are  tempted  by  pride,  and  pride  fights,  and  you  over- 
throw it,  the  wound  of  pride  will  smart,  and  pride  will  cry  out  with 
])ain  ;  but  conscience  will  fill  all  the  realm  above  with  a  nobler  and  a 
better  song  of  victory. 

Thus,  all  suffering  of  the  lower  feelings,  because  they  have  been  at 
fight  with  the  higher,  and  have  been  whipped  by  them,  will  bring  out 
the  joy  and  the  music  of  the  higher.  And  there  is  no  such  transport 
as  that  which  a  man  feels  who  suffers  because  he  is  on  the  side  of  God, 
on  the  side  of  a  principle,  and  on  the  side  of  a  great  benevolence. 

So  it  is  that  martyrs  and  heroes  who  have  been  witnesses  for  Gcd, 
and  have  suffered  for  his  cause,  in  all  ages  of  the  world,  have  been  men 
who  were  able  to  rejoice  with  a  glory  of  exquisite  felicity  which 
never  was  vouchsafed  to  self-indulgent  men.  For  our  joys  increase  as 
our  faculties  go  up,  and  our  sufferings  increase  as  our  beings  augment. 
True  suffering  is  the  labor-pain  of  joy. 

7.  The  highest  suffering  is  that  which  men  experience  when  they 
identify  themselves  with  God's  cause  in  this  Avorld,  where  the  battle  of 
tlieir  own  deliverance  is  mainly  waged;  where  the  battle  of  their  own 
lower  life  is  mainly  earned  on  ;  where  the  harmonization  of  their  own 
f  iculties  is  to  be  effected  by  God's  grace  and  training ;  where  they 
liave  put  themselves,  as  it  were,  out  and  over  into  the  great  sphere  of 
human  activity,  and  are  living  for  other  people  and  other  interests  than 
their  own  ;.  and  where  by  reason  of  these  right  and  soul-satisfying 
courses,  they  feel  that  they  are  really  the  Lord's. 

This  is  what  is  meant  when  it  is  said, 

"  If  children,  then  heirs  ;  heirs  of  God,  and  joint  heirs  with  Christ ;  if  so 
be  that  we  suffer  with  Him,  that  we  may  be  also  glorified  together." 

He  vj/io  makes  Christ's  cause  in  this  world  his  oic7i,  goes  up 
with  it,  or  goes  down  with  it,  in  joy  or  in  sorrow,  has  the  highest  form 
of  suffering.  And  it  is  a  suffering  which  like  the  wings  of  a  mighty 
angel  bears  one  over  the  little  that  remains,  and  brings  him  neai'  the 
very  throne  of  God  itsel£ 


TEE  MINISTRA  TION  OW  PAIN.  127 

In  application,  I  remark,  first,  that  the  great  realm  of  sorrow  and 
Bufi'ering  in  this  world  is  not  a  lawless  realm.  There  is  nothing  so 
dismal  as  for  one  to  feel  that  he  is  born  in  life  into  a  gi-eat  whirl  of  light 
and  darkness  where  there  are  accidents,  contingencies,«nuregulated 
forces — perhaps  fate,  and  perhaps  demoniac  influences  ;  where  things 
are  loose  and  rampant.  As  at  night  storms  howl  in  the  sky,  and  tor- 
ment the  sea,  and  run  riot  every  whither,  without  a  master,  so  men 
seem  to  think  it  is  in  this  world,  and  that  blood,  and  groans,  and  sighs, 
and  bereavements,  and  every  form  of  mischief  fill  the  world  full,  and 
that  there  is  no  God  ;  or  that,  if  there  is.  He  hides  Himself,  and  docs 
not  govern  the  world.  But  stop  !  There  is  not  a  drop  of  the  water  in 
the  midnight  storm  of  the  sea  which  seems  to  be  given  over  to  mis- 
rule, that  is  not  controlled  by  law,  and  does  not  act  accordingly. 
And  the  wild  caprice  of  night  on  the  sea  is  as  much  under  law  as  the 
formation  of  the  crystal,  or  the  growth  of  the  fruit,  or  the  develop- 
ment of  any  other  influences  upon  the  land.  It  is  ordered  of  God ; 
and  though,  to  our  look,  the  history  of  the  human  race,  and  the  his- 
tory of  the  world,  has  been  one  great  unregulated  whirl  of  manifold 
suftering  without  direction,  and  almost  without  jDrofit,  yet,  after  all,  I 
think  we  may  join  Paul  in  his  magnificent  chant,  and  say, 

'■  We  know  that  all  things  work  together  for  good  to  them  that  love 
God." 

This  world  is  not  abandoned,  and  it  is  not  lawless ;  and  suffering 
does  not  run  riot  as  it  pleases.  Sufiering  is  God's  appointed  minister, 
and  is  working  in  the  sphere  where  He  appoints  it,  and  is  doing  His 
will ;  and  by  and  by,  when  it  has  cleared  ofi*,  it  will  be  about  suffering 
just  as  it  is  in  the  fictile  factories  where,  when  they  paint  vases  with 
beautiful  flowers  and  running  vuies,  they  are  smeared  with  black,  and 
put  into  the  furnace,  and  remain  black,  and  are  black  when  they  come 
out,  until  they  are  brushed,  and  the  black  disappears,  and  naught  but 
these  beautiful  flowers  and  vines  remain.  Behind  the  groans,  and  be- 
hind the  trouble,  and  behind  the  anguish  of  men  in  this  world,  God 
has  been  writing ;  and  in  the  light  of  the  eternal  world,  figures  will 
come  out,  results  will  be  seen,  of  which  we  have  no  conception  hero. 
It  does  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be.  We  are  sons  of  God.  "We 
are  much  oppressed  by  sufi'ering.  We  come  through  tears.  There 
have  been  many  in  every  age  of  the  world  who  have  been  saved  by 
the  washing  of  their  garments  hi  blood.  A  strange  bath!  A  stran<ra 
A\liite,  that  comes  from  ci'imson !  But  so  it  is.  God  took  your  com- 
panion ;  He  humbled  your  pride  ;  He  scattered  your  property ;  He 
smote  down  your  ambition ;  He  made  you  a  cripple,  and  rolled  you  out 
of  the  pale  of  industry,  and  left  you  dependent,  and  you  are  like  a 
callow  bud  fed  by  some  winged  messenger. 


128  THE  MINISTRATION  OF  PAIN. 

God  has,  in  all  this  vast  sphere  of  various  hindrances,  and  various 
attritions,  and  various  outlying  sufferings,  an  order.  And  it  is  no 
less  God's  because  it  is  executed  by  natural  law.  For  natural  laws  are 
God's  finger^;  natural  law  is  the  reaching  out  of  God's  right  hand ; 
natural  law  is  the  will  of  God  throughout  the  universe. 

I  remark,  secondly,Suffering  must  be  used  in  this  world.  That 
is  to  say,  it  is  not  enough  for  us  to  comfort  ourselves  if  we  are  afflicted. 
Many  and  many  a  one  may  be  afflicted  and  not  know  what  to  do  with 
his  blessing.  Many  may  be  afflicted  and  yet  not  understand  the  afflic- 
tion, and  not  work  it  out.  As  when  one  is  sleeping  in  a  room  that  is 
fflled  with  smoke,  and  is  half  suffocated,  and  is,  by  a  friend  that  is 
rushing  to  save  himself,  smitten  heavily, — if  he  does  not  understand 
the  warning  he  sleeps  on  and  is  consumed ;  as  when,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, the  man  not  taking  the  hint  does  not  rouse  up  and  save 
himself,  but  perishes :  so  suffering  often  comes  to  little,  because  it  is 
not  interpreted ;  because  men  do  not  know  the  meaning  of  it ;  because 
they  do  not  understand  the  direction  that  comes  to  them ;  because  they 
do  not  study  it,  and  endeavor  to  profit  by  it. 

The  first  thought  every  man  has  in  respect  to  i^ain  or  suffering,  is  as 
to  the  shortest  cut  to  get  rid  of  it.  Your  life  is  ore,  and  God  puts  you 
into  the  furnace,  and  kindles  the  fire ;  and  when  the  draught  begins  to 
spread  the  heat,  your  first  thought  is  of  the  quickest  way  to  get  the 
fire  out,  but  not  of  the  best  way  to  get  the  metal  out  and  leave  the 
dross.  Your  only  desire  is  to  get  away  from  the  fire.  Very  few 
there  are  who  have  the  grace,  when  God  afflicts  them,  to  say,  "  O  ! 
my  soul,  sit  thou  down  as  a  disciple  of  Christ,"  and  to  say,  "  O  Lord, 
what  wilt  thou  ?  What  shall  it  do  to  me?  What  secret  is  now  to  be 
disclosed  ?  What  better  way  is  to  be  walked  ?  What  new  strength 
is  to  be  developed  ?  What  higher  hope  is  to  be  awakened?  What 
disininterested  love  is  to  be  called  into  action  ?  What  hath  this  suf- 
lering  brought  to  me  ?" 

Suffering  is  as  God's  letter.  Open  it  and  read  it.  Many  of  you 
will  find  that  you  are  titled,  or  that  there  is  an  inheritance  laid  up  for 
you.  But  suffering  needs  to  be  studied,  needs  to  be  pondered,  needs 
to  be  helped.  For  otherwise  it  may  be  as  a  blind  or  dumb  messenger, 
unable  to  show  you  anything,  or  to  lead  you  anywhere.  Hov.''  much 
suffering  there  is  that  is  squandered  in  this  life  !  How  much  suffering 
there  is  that  seems  to  come  from  nowhere,  and  to  go  nowhere  !  And 
in  the  midst  of  all  our  sufferings  in  this  life,  Avhile  we  maintain  this  gen- 
eral faith  that  it  is  a  minister  of  God  for  our  education,  cautionary,  dis- 
ciplinary, formative ;  while  we  are  carrying  with  us,  as  a  kind  of  shield, 
this  blessed  thought,  there  comes  in  also  the  other  thought — and  the 


TEE  MINISTRATION  OF  PAIN.  129 

two  are  nearly  joined  together — that  the  day  of  suffering  is  a  short 
day,  and  that  the  day  of  remuneration  is  an  everlasting  day. 

"  For  I  reckon  that  the  sufferings  of  this  present  time  are  not  worthy  to 
be  compared  with  the  glory  which  shall  be  revealed  in  us/' 

If  I  may  stand  at  last  before  God,  with  all  that  which  belonged  to 
the  material  globe  purged  away ;  with  all  those  forces,  gigantic  and  in- 
tense, that  allied  me  to  the  animal  life  below  subdued  and  converted 
into  a  higher  spiritual  force  ;  if  I  may  stand  there  competent  to  under- 
stand things  which  were  hidden  from  me  here,  with  all  the  noblest  in- 
stincts and  intuitions  of  my  nature  purified  and  exalted,  so  that  I  shall 
be  able  to  look  God  in  the  face  and  call  him  Father,  and  see  him  as  he 
is — in  that  hour  of  coronation  and  of  mighty  triumph,  what  matter  will 
it  be  if  I  have  gained  it  through  some  teai'S,  and  many  sorrows,  and 
much  suffering?  The  sufferings  which  we  are  going  through,  if  they 
are  not  aimless,  are  full  of  promise  to  us. 

Woe  be  to  him  then,  that  suffers  and  grows  harder.  Woe  be  to 
them  who  suffer  and  grow  selfish.  Woe  be  to  them  who  suffer  and 
sink  down,  and  down,  and  down.  Suffer  as  the  vine  does.  The  cutting 
off  of  the  branch  by  the  pruner's  knife  is  not  lost  strength.  The  vine 
says,  "  If  I  may  not  grow  in  that  direction,  I  will  grow  in  some  other 
direction."  And  so  it  pours  new  blood  into  the  cluster ;  and  more 
sugar  goes  to  each  grape.  And  God  prunes  those  that  he  loves,  that 
they  may  bring  forth  more  and  better  fruit. 

Is  God  dealing  with  you?  Do  not  do  as  Paul  did,  even.  Do  not 
pray  thrice  that  the  suffering  may  be  removed.  Is  God  dealing  with 
you  and  laying  his  cross  upon  you  ?  Submit.  Do  not  ask  to  have  the 
pain  taken  away.  Say,  "  Lord  teach  me  how  to  use  my  suffering  for 
thy  glory.  Teach  me  patience.  Teach  me  taith.  Teach  me  how  to 
commingle  joy  with  sorrow.  Teach  me  how  to  see  what  I  never  should 
have  seen  but  for  these  trials.  Bring  me  nearer  home.  Train  me  in 
manhood.  Make  me  more  inwardly  than  I  have  been,  and  I  care  not  for 
the  outward  experience." 

Full  blessed  are  they  that  are  called,  and  that  have  this  sign — 
Whom  the  Lord  loveth  he  chasteneth,  and  scourgeth  every  son  whom 
he  receiveth. 

If  you  do  not  suffer  at  all,  in  the  shape  of  care  or  disappointment 
or  aspiration,  or  in  any  of  the  forms  of  affliction  which  are  incident  to 
the  divine  economy  in  this  world,  God  says  that  you  are  not  sons. 
If  there  is  no  strife,  if  there  is  no  aspiration,  if  there  is  no  breaking 
away  from  the  lower  forms  in  which  you  are  clasped  and  held,  then 
there  is  no  birth-pain,  and  therefore  there  is  no  birth.  But  if  you  suf- 
fer, and  are  submissive  and  are  instructed  of  God,  suffering  is  sanctified 
to  you.     And  then  you  are  children  of  God.     Then  vou  ai-e  sons  of 


130  THE  MINISTRATION  OF  PAIN. 

God.  Though  it  does  not  appear  how  great  the  glory  of  that  estate  is, 
yet  we  know  that  we  are  the  sons  of  God,  and  that  when  he  shall  ap- 
pear we  shall  be  like  him,  and  see  him  as  he  is,  and  dwell  with  him  for- 
ever and  forever. 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

We  draw  near  thee  with  ever-increasing  joy  and  hope,  our  Father,  since  thou 
hast  made  thy  love  manifest  to  us  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  and  Saviour. 
We  are  not  borne  against  fear,  and  in  the  face  of  storms,  full  of  doubt,  full  of 
disaster,  where  so  many  have  been  whelmed  and  wrecked.  For  we  have  a 
sure  word  of  prophecy  and  testimony.  We  are  able  to  say  I  ^"now.  Our 
pnuls  are  better  witnesses  that  thou  art,  and  that  thou  art  the  rewarder  of 
them  that  diligently  seek  thee,  than  any  reasoning  can  be.  We  have  felt  thy 
jirt'sence.  It  is  by  the  power  of  thine  heart  that  ours  have  been  buoyed  up 
and  carried  mightily  in  the  hour  of  our  depression  and  weakness.  How 
much  we  need  thee!  Still  we  walk  in  the  strength  let  down  upon  us  from 
above  as  if  it  were  our  own  strength.  We  control  the  earth  with  all  its 
manifold  and  hidden  forces  around  about  us  as  if  this  was  our  power.  Thus 
we  are  living  by  the  inflections  of  thy  will  which  are  the  laws  of  this  globe, 
find  iissuming  to  ourselves  the  skill  and  the  knowledge  which  is  all  borrow- 
cil  from  thee.  For  in  thee  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.  And  thus 
vinited  with  thee,  how  can  we  be  harmed  ?  How  can  anything  befall  those 
who  put  their  trust  in  God?  If  thou  art  for  us,  who  can  be  against  us? 
Even  trouble  brings  fruit  and  peace,  and  sorrows  bring  down  joy. 

We  rejoice,  O  Lord!  that  thou  art  such  an  one;  and  that  this  great  wea- 
risome and  long  and  lonely  travailing  world  is  not  forgotten  ;  and  that  the 
ii'W  lines  of  light  which  break  upon  it  here  and  there,  as  through  storm- 
clouds  the  sun  sometimes  breaks,  are  not  all  the  light  that  is  reserved  for 
ic.  We  rejoice  that  this  great  burdened  mankind  that  so  long  have  afflict- 
ed themselves  and  been  afflicted,  have  a  pitying  God;  and  that  thou  art 
t  Hirying  them  in  thine  arms,  and  that  thou  art  looking  forward  to  the  day 
of  fonsummation  ;  and  that  even  as  the  seasons  bring  forth  little  things  that 
spring  up  and  grow  and  ripen  until  they  wax  strong ;  so  thou  art  strength- 
ening the  world,  and  thou  art  causing  it  to  ripen  more  ind  more  unto  thy 
puipo  es. 

And  thou  shalt  bring  forth  in  the  world  victory  when  tears  shall 
cease  to  fall,  and  sorrows  shall  be  forgotten,  and  men  for  songs  shall  for- 
get groans  and  sighs.  In  that  bright  day  thou  shalt  vindicate  the  ad- 
ministration of  love.  And  while  thou  wilt  make  it  manifest,  full  of  truth 
and  fall  of  justice,  it  shall  be  fuller  ofmercy  and  overflow  ;  and  alt  the  universal 
riahn  shall  know  that  thou  art  a  God  omnipotent  in  love,  and  that  thou 
hast  caused  the  whole  creation,  as  a  tree  of  life,  to  shake  down  its  blossoms 
and  its  blessed  fruits.  Even  so,  Lord  Jesus,  come  quickly;  for  our  faith  is 
like  to  fail.  The  darkness  is  so  great,  the  multitude  of  those  that  know  not 
God  is  so  large,  and  wickedness  is  so  desperate,  the  suffering  and  the  sigh- 
ing from  above  and  from  beneath  are  so  pitiful,  that  the  whole  creation 
groans  together  in  pain.  And  dost  thou  not  hear  it  ?  Are  we  only  to  hear 
and  to  know,  and  dost  thou  forget,  sitting  in  the  palaces  of  thy  love  and 
looking  forth?  Thou  hast  given  us  testimony  of  thy  remembrance  in  thy 
Son;  and  having  given  him,  thou  wilt  give  all  things  that  are  needful. 
And  time  cannot  mistake,  nor  go  wrong,  nor  the  world  be  wrecked.  What- 
ever is  dark  (and  there  is  much  darkness  brooding  that  will  not  rise),  and 
whatever  is  strange  and  mysterious  (and  life  is  full  of  mystery  to  us,  unknow- 


THE  MimSTBA  TION  OF  PAIN.  131 

ing  and  untaught),  all  is  light  before  thee,  that  seest  the  end  from  the  De- 
ginning.  Love  cannot  go  wrong.  And  when  thou  shalt  have  cousummat- 
td  all  things  and  completed  thy  work,  we  shall  behold  it,  and  with  all  thy 
ransomed  hosts  shall  pronounce  it  good.  And  in  the  faith  of  thee  (not  in 
our  knowledge  of  thee),  in  the  faith  of  God's  love  (not  in  our  knowledge  of 
the  way  in  which  love  is  working),  we  stand  and  will  endure  to  the  end. 

And  now,  we  beseech  of  thee,  O  Lord  our  God,  that  thou  wilt  vo'ich- 
safe  help  to  every  one  in  thy  presence  according  to  his  special  need.  Some 
are  in  joy,  and  some  are  in  sorrow.  Some  are  in  despondency  and  doubt, 
and  some  are  in  the  utter  confidence  and  expectation  of  hope.  "We  pray 
that  thou  wilt  draw  near  to  all  those  in  the  sunlight  and  to  all  those  in  the 
shadow,  alike.  Grant  unto  them,  this  day,  that  portion  of  divine  influence 
which  they  need.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  tliose  who  are  in 
])rosperity  may  know  how  to  consecrate,  of  their  own  good  will,  their  pros- 
])erity  to  God  who  loves  them.  And  we  pray  that  those  who  are  walking 
in  sorrow  and  in  adversity  may  find  the  grace  of  God  and  the  strength  of 
God  in  them,  and  never  leaving  them  nor  forsaking  them.  And  may  none 
account  the  burden  too  heavy  which  God  gives  them  the  strength  to  bear. 
IMay  none  be  unwilling  to  take  his  cross  and  bear  it.  Blessed  be  thy 
name  that  thou  didst  bow.  that  Ihou  didst  bend,  that  thou  didst  desire  the 
trouble  to  be  removed,  and  didst  pray  for  it,  but  didst,  by  the  blessed  tnr- 
titude  and  endurance  of  love,  drink  the  cup,  and  wouldst  not  sutler  it  to 
pass,  since  it  was  the  will  of  God  that  thou  shouldst  drink  it.  And  may 
we,  more  feeble  and  failing  and  fearing  than  thou  wert,  and  with  less  dis- 
cipline than  thine,  be  able  to  bear  the  things  that  are  not  taken  off  at  our 
cry.  And  if  the  thorn  be  piercing  and  painful,  and  we  beseech  thee  thrice, 
grant,  at  least,  that  thy  grace  may  be  sufficient. 

O  Lord,  may  we  suffer  on,  if  suffering  be  our  appointed  lot.  If  we  arc 
to  be  disappointed,  and  our  way  is  to  be  blocked  up,  it  is  the  Avay  of  the 
Lord.  Lei  him  do  what  seeuicih  to  him  good.  May  we  be  able  evermore 
to  have  this  confidence,  that  God  is  our  friend  ;  and  that  life  itself,  with  all 
its  experiences,  though  we  may  not  see  it  now,  is  our  friend  ;  and  that  we 
are  ripening  and  preparing  for  the  ministration  of  suffering  as  well  as  fur 
joy, — for  that  rest  which  remaineth  for  the  people  of  God.  May  we  bo 
brave.  May  we  be  enduring  and  patient  unto  the  end.  May  we  know 
how  to  outwork  sorrow  and  trouble  and  care.  May  we  know  how  to  re- 
joice in  the  midst  of  suffering  and  infirmity.  May  we  count  it  all  joy  when 
we  fiiU  into  divers  trials.  May  we  be  so  elated  with  hope  from  above,  with 
the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  that  we  shall  not  be  cast  down  as  other 
men  are,  but  shall  walk  in  the  light.  And  may  we  know  how  to  extract 
joy  from  suflfering.  So,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  we  may  be  taught  of  God. 
And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt,  out  of  our  sorrows  and  sufferings  have  it  given 
to  us  to  comfort  those  who  are  in  like  affliction.  May  we  know  how  to  go 
about  doing  good,  and  fulfill  the  law  of  our  God  in  our  example.  And  we 
beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  any  that  are 
in  thy  presence  to-day  looking  wistful,  and  yet  feeling  that  they  deserve  no 
T  thought  of  God.  They  that  are  conscious  of  their  sinfulness,  and  are  over- 
pressed  with  the  conviction  of  their  ill-desert;  they  that  do  not  feel  even 
that  they  have  strength  to  avoid  sin  nor  to  turn  away  from  it;  that  they 
have  no  Saviour  whom  they  dare  approach,  and  who,  yet,  need  one  above 
all  others,  and  in  whom  there  is  a  conflict  between  despair  and  the  love  of 
that  which  is  evil.  Lord  Jesus,  are  not  these  thine  own  ?  Is  it  not  the 
work  of  thy  grace  to  succor  just  such?  Wilt  thou  not  appear  for  those 
that  cannot  help  themselves  ?  Thou  that  dost  break  open  the  prison  door; 
thou  that  dost  go  out  after  the  lost  to  find  them  and  to  bring  them  back  ; 
thou  that  dost  not  wait  for  prodigals  to  come  close  to  thee  and  speak  their 
whole  epeech,  but  dost  burst  out  with  thy  love,  full  of  overflowing  joy  and 
forgiveness  upon  them,  hast  thou  not  here  many  that  thou  wilt  rescue  by 


1  32  TEE  MimSTBATION  OF  PAIN. 

f1iv  grace  and  by  thy  power,  for   the  honor   and   the  gh-ry  of  thine  own 
name? 

We  pray  for  those  who  do  not  pray.  We  pray  for  the  chidren  of  pa- 
rents long  since  gone  home,  who  have  forgotten  parental  example,  and  have 
M'nndered  from  evil  to  evil. 

Peradventure  many  have  come  up  hither  this  morning,  not  knowing  what 
brought  them  here.  Is  there  not  one  wanderer  in  our  midst  this  morning 
to  whom  thou  art  speaking  already,  and  whose  conscience  is  condemning 
him,  but  who  is,  after  so  long  a  time  turning  and  going  back  toward  his 
Father's  house  ?  We  jjray  that  many  wanderers  may  be  reclaimed.  May 
tliere  be  many  of  those  whose  hearts  have  been  hardened,  that  to  day  begin 
to  experience  a  divine  contrition.  And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that 
we  may  know  how  to  discern  such,  and  how  to  succor  them.  And  may 
every  heart  that  to-day  is  conscious  of  Christ's  grace,  ot  his  tenderness  and 
f  irgiving  mercy,  and  of  his  long-suffering,  have  some  lesson,  some  message, 
some  service  for  those  that  are  bestead,  for  those  that  are  hindered,  for  those 
that  need  succor.  We  pray  that  thy  work  may  abound ;  that  the  truth  may 
become  a  living  power;  that  we  may  hear  men  beginning  to  rejoice  who 
before  have  not  known  thee.  And  may  this  whole  sanctuary  be  filled  with 
the  presence  of  our  God,  and  with  his  soul-idling  power. 

Bless  all  thy  Churches  to-day.  May  thy  servants  that  are  appointed  to 
preach  the  Gospel  be  more  and  more  filled  with  God's  power.  If  any  of 
iliein  are  sick  or  in  weakness  or  despondency,  give  them  the  light  of  thy 
countenance.  And  may  they  in  the  joy  of  the  truth  of  thy  salvation  be  able 
to  go  on  in  their  way  to  the  end,  enduring  patiently.  And  we  pray  that 
thou  wilt  unite  thy  people  more  and  more.  May  we  think  more  of  tlie 
ihings  in  which  we  agree,  and  less  of  the  things  in  which  we  difler.  And  we 
jirny  that  thy  Churches,  united  together  in  the  love  of  God,  and  in  patience 
with  each  other,  and  in  the  common  strife  of  good  will,  and  of  doing  good, 
jiiiy  illumine  all  this  land.  May  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  receive  the 
luiings  of  thy  Gospel.  And  may  Jesus  Christ  become  known,  and  his  dear 
iittne  be  spoken  in  every  language  under  heaven.  May  those  who  to-day, 
everywhere  over  the  earth,  are  seeking  to  make  the  light  shine  in  the  dark- 
iiesi  of  heathendom  be  remembered  of  God  ;  and  may  their  hearts  be  com- 
forted, and  their  hands  strengthened. 

We  pray,  our  Father,  that  thou  wilt  speedily  bring  to  an  end  the  great 
war  that  shakes  the  earth.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  peace  may 
bring  with  it  justice,  and  that  it  may  be  such  a  peace  that  all  the  common 
people  shall  be  fructified  by  it.  We  pray  that  dynasties  that  live  by  sel- 
fislmess  and  by  oppression  may  find  their  p  iwer  waning,  and  that  He  whose 
right  it  is  shall  come  and  reign.  We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  give 
light, and  knowledge,  and  truth,  and  religion  to  the  people,  that  they  may 
find  in  Christ  their  birthright  of  liberty,  and  be  able  to  sustain  it,  and  not 
be  corrupted  by  it.  Oh !  make  haste.  Is  there  not  blood  enough  that  flows 
to  the  horses'  bridles  ?  Are  there  not  groans  enough  ?  Is  there  not  misery 
enough  ?  Lord,  look  out  and  rebuke  the  slaying  and  the  slayer,  and  the 
destroying  and  the  destruction.  O  Lord  God  !  come,  and  let  thy  wings 
as  the  wings  of  a  dove  be  outspread,  and  beneath  the  shadow  of  thy  wings 
may  the  nations  find  rest. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise,  Father,  Son  and  Spirit.    Amen. 


VIII. 

Selfish  Morality. 


SELFISH  MORALITY. 


I  shall  speak  to  you  this  evening  on  the  subject  that  is  derived  from 
the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  which  I  have  just  read  in  your  hear- 
ing, and  which  is  found  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  Luke's  Gospel. 

Although  this  is  often  preached  from,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  whole 
ground  which  is  covered  by  it  is  very  seldom  looked  at.  Only  half  of 
it  is  generally  employed  ;  and  surely,  that  is  worthy  of  every  consider- 
ation. It  is  in  every  respect  one  of  the  most  exquisite  of  the  recorded 
teachings  of  our  Master.  And  it  is  fully  as  admirable  a  piece  of  art  as 
it  is  a  piece  of  instruction. 

If  you  consider  how  our  Master  was  surrounded  with  malignant 
watching  enemies ;  if  you  consider  that  the  very  truths  which  it  was 
necessary  for  him  to  preach  were  the  truths  which  they  most  bitterly 
hated  ;  if  you  consider  that  the  mercy  of  God  to  all  men  was  in  their 
judgment  treason  to  his  peculiar  people,  and  that  the  allegation  of 
pride  and  of  self-conceit  and  of  hypocrisy  against  the  Pharisees  and 
the  Scribes  was  to  the  last  degree  oflensive  ;  if  you  consider  that  these 
men  were  fanatical  as  well  as  malignant,  and  that  there  was  danger,  in 
any  hour,  that  they  would  burst  forth  with  such  rage  and  fury  to  de- 
stroy the  Saviour  that  it  became  necessary  for  him  at  times  to  veil  his 
instruction  ;  if,  considering  these  things,  you  see  how  his  parables  were 
constructed,  how  they  struck  the  very  centre,  and  yet  were  presented 
in  such  pictorial  forms  that  these  men  who  grated  their  teeth  over  them 
could  not  well  get  hold  of  them,  and  were  obliged  to  hear  them  ;  if 
you  see  how  beautiful  the  parable  is,  and  then  see  how  it  smites  them 
under  the  fifth  rib — if  you  see  and  consider  these  things,  you  cannot 
but  feel  that  there  was  masterly  execution  of  plan,  and  that  there  was 
masterly  art  in  so  covering  a  large  ground  of  moral  truth  with  few 
touchings — in  the  so  speaking  things  that  while  they  were  absolutely 
simple,  they  were  almost  omnipotent  in  then-  efiect.  Such  a  consider- 
ation, I  think,  will  not  alone  raise  in  our  minds  admiration  for  the 
power  of  Christ  as  an  artist-worker  in  form,  but  will  also  add  to  the 
zest  with  which  we  then  accept  the  moral  instruction.  For,  after  all, 
we  shall  feel  more  and  more,  as  we  study  these  things,  that  beautiful 
as  they  are,  and  admirable  as  they  are,  in  form,  it  is  the  least  of  their 
excellence ;  and  it  is  the  richness  of  the  interior  that  abides  with  us. 

Sunday  Evlning,  Oct.  30, 1870.  Lesson :  Luke  XV.,  11-31.     Hymns  (Plymouth  Colleotion): 
Nos.  1312,  865,  500. 


134  SELFISH  MOBALITT. 

There  were  three  characters  in  this  parable.  It  is  aimed,  nnqnes- 
tionably,  at  the  Scribes  and  the  Pharisees — the  men  that  supposed  they 
embodied  in  themselves  every  excellence  that  inhered  in  human  nature 
and  showed  forth  the  purity  of  the  temple.  They  had  been  keeping  God's 
law,  now,  for  some  hundred  years  or  more,  with  such  rigor  that  they 
really  felt  that  they  had  laid  God  under  an  obligation.  He  had  said  t^iat 
if  they  would  keep  his  law  perfectly,  their  lands  should  be  kept  from  the 
hands  of  the  enemy ;  that  they  should  govern  themselves,  and  that  they 
should  govern  other  men  as  they  had  been  governed.  And  they  really 
believed  that  they  had  taken  God  at  his  word,  and  fulfilled  every  duty. 
Nay  more,  they  had  gone  beyond  the  letter,  and  avowed  it  a  moral 
duty,  so  that  there  might  be  ample  margin  ;  so  that  there  should  be 
no  mistake.  And  they  came  to  feel,  "  There,  this  is  the  promise,  and 
we  have" fulfilled  it  to  the  letter,  and  more  than  to  the  letter;  and  now 
God  is  bound  to  fulfill  his  part  of  the  covenant."  And  it  was  an  enig- 
ma, it  was  a  profound  perplexity  to  their  minds,  why  it  was,  with  all 
these  promises,  that  they  were  trodden  under  foot  of  the  Romans,  and 
despoiled  as  they  had  been.  They  could  not  understand  that.  For 
they  were  righteous  men — that  one  thing  they  knew.  There  were 
other  things  that  they  were  ignorant  about  ;  but  they  knew  about  this 

that  they  were  thoroughly  good  men.     Admirable  men  they  were. 

Now,  it  became  necessary  for  every  one  of  them  to  be  slain.  It  be- 
came necessary  to  strike  the  sword  right  home  to  this  conceit  in  which 
their  very  life  was  bound  up.  And  this  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son 
was  aimed  at  them.  That  older  brother  is  the  Pharisee ;  and  the 
younger  brother  is  the  Gentile — the  outside  man  of  the  world.  And 
we  must  bear  in  mind  these  two  characters,  because  we  have  their  par- 
allel m  our  own  midst.  The  Pharisee  is  not  alone  of  Jewish  extraction. 
There  are  Anglo-Saxon  Pharisees.  Just  the  same  state  of  mind  which 
was  represented  by  the  Pharisees  of  the  temple,  is  still  represented  by 
the  arrogant  moralist  and  the  purist  of  our  own  times. 

There  were,  as  I  have  said,  these  three  characters — the  sinning,  im- 
l)etuous  young  man,  and  the  proper  and  well-behaved  elder  brother, 
and  the  father.  They  are  all  of  them  striking  in  the  way  in  which 
they  are  delineated.  The  two  sons  come  into  mention  at  the  very  be- 
ginning, and  in  remarkable  contrast.  The  young  man,  willful,  way- 
ward, apparently  without  much  aflection  for  his  parents,  at  any  rate 
headstrong,  bent  upon  pleasure,  demanded  that  his  father  should  give 
him  his  patrimony.  The  Mher  did  so.  The  young  man  gathered 
up  all  that  belonged  to  him,  and  went  into  a  far  country:  and 
Ihis  life  there  was  a  life  of  utter  dissipation.  The  other  brother  is 
introduced  as  a  stayer-at-home.  And,  as  we  learn  in  the  sequel,  he 
was  one  who  was  rigidly  obedient  to  his  father.     He  studied  the  inter- 


SELFISH  MORALITY.  11^ 

est  of  the  place.  He  took  care  of  the  old  man,  and  of  all  his  possessions. 
He  was  a  respectable  citizen.  No  man  could  say  ought  against  hira. 
He  staid  at  home  and  attended  to  his  duty,  and  his  whole  duty,  while 
that  scapegrace  of  a  younger  brother  had  gone  off,  taking  all  the  prop- 
erty that  he  could  lay  his  hands  on,  had  sunk  from  bad  to  worse,  and 
had  plunged  to  the  bottom ;  and  the  last  thing  heard  from  him  was, 
that  he  was  reduced  to  the  extremity  of  feeding  swine,  and  eating 
then-  food. 

Here  are  the  two  brothers — the  older  and  the  younger ;  and  the 
contrast  is  a  sad  one.  Here  is  the  good  older  brother,  the  respectable 
older  brother,  staying  at  home  and  attending  to  his  duty,  an  honorable 
citizen,  an  obedient  son,  an  excellent  man,  and  a  most  proper  person  ; 
and  there  is  that  miserable,  dissipated,  wretched,  besotted,  young  man, 
drinking,  rioting  in  debauchery,  wasting  bodily  strength,  wasting  purity 
of  affection,  wasting  everything,  bestializing  himself,  clear  down  to 
the  bottom.  And  who  would  not  want  to  be  the  older  brother  ?  I 
would  not.     I  would  rather  be  the  younger  one.     But  let  us  see. 

How  is  the  picture  of  this  young  man  drawn  ?  So  that  men  will 
be  fascinated  with  his  career  ?  No,  I  think  not.  Everybody's  sym- 
pathy goes  with  him.  You  cannot  help,  when  you  read  the  parable 
cleai'  through,  being  on  the  side  of  the  young  man.  And  yet,  there  is 
nobody  in  this  world  who  thinks  he  did  a  good  thing.  Everybody 
feels  that  he  was  wicked,  and  that  he  was  justly  punished  for  his  wick- 
edness. Every  single  step  is  so  drawn  that,  while  your  sympathy,  in 
some  sense,  holds  on  to  him,  it  is  a  sympathy  that  all  the  time  is  con- 
demning him.  There  is  an  undertone  all  the  while,  in  your  heart, 
which  says,  "  Well,  he  is  reaping  what  he  sowed.  Since  he  has  pur- 
sued, and  will  pursue,  such  a  course,  he  must  receive  such  punishment." 
And  you  condemn  him,  and  punish  him  in  your  thoughts,  as  he  goes 
on  from  bad  to  worse. 

There  is  pleasm-e — that  is  the  first  step  of  a  dissipated  life.  And 
there  is  excitement  in  it.  There  is  a  joyous  period  that  belongs  to  it. 
Then  comes  the  period  of  beginning  shadows.  Then  comes  some, 
mingling  bitterness  with  the  cup.  And  the  two  elements  change  very 
fast.  The  bitter  more  and  more  predominates.  And  by  and  by  the 
period  arrives  in  which  want  and  fear  begin  to  come  in,  together  with 
the  consciousness  which  vice  carries  with  it.  Vice  at  the  beginning  is 
all  bright ;  and  so  long  as  wicked  men  are  prosperous  they  have  no 
lack  of  friends  ;  but  when  trouble  comes  it  begins  to  be  dark,  and  they  ' 
become  separated  one  from  another,  and  find  themselves  without 
friends.  For  nothing  in  this  world  is  so  heartless,  I  was  going  to  say, 
as  men  who  have  had  fellowship  in  vice  together.  It  is  not  always  so. 
But  one  of  the  mysteries  of  long-continued  vice  is,  that  while  it  wastes 


136  8ALFISH  MORALITY. 

the  body,  it  does  mischief  the  heart ;  that  it  rubs  out  the  finer  feelings  ; 
that  it  not  only  takes  away  cordiality  and  sympathy  from  men,  but 
leaves  them  selfish  and  hard  as  a  stone.  The  worst  mischief  of  vice  is 
that  it  leaves  men  so  without  a  heart. 

This  was  an  exceptional  case,  therefore.  The  career  of  this  young 
man  was  not  long  enough  drawn  out  to  reach  the  very  foundation. 
He  "wasted  his  substance  in  riotous  living."  It  was  a  swirl  of 
intoxication  that  he  was  in.  For  it  is  said,  "  When  he  came  to  him- 
self," etc.  From  the  time  that  he  left  his  father's  house,  clear  down  to 
the  time  when  he  was  feeding  swine,  a  lone  exile,  he  was  in  a  kind  of 
insanity.  He  had  been  Avhirling  through  scenes  of  dissipation  and 
debauchery.  And  now,  with  more  temperate  diet,  and  more  select 
companionship  (for  I  think  he  changed  to  advantage  when  he  took 
the  swine  for  his  companions !)  he  came  to  himself  Better  diet 
brought  coolness  to  his  brain ;  and  these  better  companions  did  not 
lead  him  astray.  His  reason  came  back  to  him.  And  the  moment 
his  reason  came  back,  he  showed  that  there  was  something  in  him 
which  had  not  yet  been  spoiled.  He  recognized  his  whole  condition. 
He  did  not  attempt  to  palliate  it.  He  made  no  excuses.  He  heaped 
no  reproaches  on  his  companions,  nor  upon  himself,  even.  The  past 
was  gone.  He  simply  said  to  himself,  "  Well,  I  am  worse  than  my 
father's  slaves  and  hired  servants  ;  but  this  one  thing  I  will  do :  I  will 
go  back  on  my  track.  I  will  retrace  my  steps.  I  will  go  home.  I 
will  go  to  my  father,  and  will  say  to  him  that  I  have  sinned."  There 
was  not  one  single  exculpation.  He  felt  that  he  had  sinned,  that 
heaven  had  seen  his  sin,  and  that  God  had  noted  it.  And  he  deter- 
mined, when  he  reached  home,  to  say  to  his  father,  "  I  have  sinned 
against  heaven,  and  befoi-e  thee.  I  am  not  worthy  to  be  called  thy 
son."  He  said  to  himself,  "  I  will  go  home,  and  I  will  ask  to  be  per- 
mitted to  sit  down  with  the  servants."  He  had  a  heart  yet  which  led 
him  to  desire  to  go  back  to  his  father's  house.  And  such  a  heart  as 
that  has  something  recoverable  in  it.  Vice  had  not  washed  out  all  the 
color.  It  had  not  ground  all  the  enamel  oiF.  There  was  something 
sound  at  the  bottom  yet.  He  had  been  through  a  very  wicked  course, 
and  yet  everybody  feels  that  there  was,  after  all,  something  salvable  in 
that  young  man's  case — that  there  was  softness,  tenderness,  recupera- 
tiveness  of  heart  in  him.  You  will  take  notice,  also,  that  when  he 
had  set  his  face  homeward  toward  his  father's  house,  with  the  liturgy 
that  he  meant  to  recite,  he  was  not  permitted  by  that  dear  old  man  to 
get  through  all  the  humiliation  that  he  had  proposed  for  himself  For, 
long  before  he  got  in  sight  of  his  father's  house,  his  father  had  got 
sioht  of  him.  Sorrowina:  love  watches  more  for  an  outcast  than  re- 
pentance  w^atches  for  one's  own  self  The  father  saw  him  before  he 
saw  the  father,  and  ran  to  him. 


SELFISH  MORALIT  T,  137 

Some  might  have  said,  "  It  is  proper  that  there  should  be  atone- 
ment made  for  offended  parental  authority  ;  dignity  and  government 
require  that  the  offender  should  go  through  a  probation  ;  it  is  neces- 
sary that  he  should  confess."     But  love  did  not  think  so. 

"When  he  was  yet  a  great  way  oiF,  his  father  saw  him,  and  had  com- 
passiou,  and  ran,  and  fell  on  his  neck,  and  kissed  him." 

Oh !  how  easy  it  is  to  confess  into  the  great  open  heart  of  love  ! 
and  how  hard  it  is  to  confess  in  the  stern  face  of  justice,  of  reproach, 
and  of  rebuke !  But  where  there  is  the  glowing  heart  of  sympathy 
and  of  love,  who  could  not  bury  his  face  in  his  mother's  bosom  and 
say,  "  Mother !  mother !  I  have  gone  wrong  "  !  Many  a  child  a  tender 
mother  can  save,  whom  a  stern  father  would  destroy  utterly. 

And  so,  in  the  representation  of  the  divine  mercy  here,  the  word 
of  God  stands  open  like  a  mother's  heart,  waiting,  nay,  anticipating, 
nay,  running  after,  the  delinquent.  And  when  he  said,  "  I  have  sinned 
against  heaven  and  in  thy  sight,  and  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  called 
thy  SOD,"  his  father  would  not  let  him  say,  "  Make  me  as  one  of  thy 
hu-ed  servants  " ;  he  cut  that  all  off,  and  impetuously  called  for  the 
robe,  and  the  ring,  and  the  shoes.  And  the  boy  needed  them  all,  for 
he  was  a  vagabond.  But  he  had  come  to  all  the  insignia  of  enjoyment 
and  triumphant  festivity.  All  were  glad  ;  the  old  man's  heart  was  very 
glad ;  and  it  went  out  like  a  cataract. 

And  so  the  young  man  was  rescued.  "Well,  I  am  glad  of  it.  He 
was  too  good  to  spoil  so.  There  was  something  good  in  him.  You  see 
that  he  went  by  excess  of  social  feeling.  He  was  gentle  ;  he  was  gen- 
erous; he  was  affectionate.  There  was  much  nobility  about  him;  and 
yet  it  all  went  wi'ong.  But  when,  going  wrong,  experience  touched 
his  better  qualities,  he  began  to  come  back  again.  And  everybody  is 
on  his  side.  Everybody  goes  with  the  young  sinner.  And  everybody 
goes  against  the  elder  brother  just  as  much.  Yet  he  is  the  pattern 
young  man.  He  is  the  man  who  is  the  admiration  of  the  neigh- 
borhood. He  is  the  man  who  thinks  his  life  ought  to  be  written  and 
put  in  a  book.  He  is  the  man  who  is  so  virtuous  that  he  cannot  look 
out  of  the  window  when  a  wicked  man  is  staggering  by.  He  is  the 
man  who  prays  every  day,  and  thanks  God  that  he  is  not  as  other 
men  are.  Oh!  he  is  so  strict !  He  has  never  neglected  anything, 
that  he  knows  of  He  has  kept  the  whole  law.  He  has  been  good. 
He  has  staid  at  home,  and  taken  care  of  his  father,  and  especially 
of  his  father's  property.  "Well,  as  he  came  in  from  the  field  where 
he  had  been  meditating  upon  his  excellence,  he  heard  an  uncom- 
mon noise  in  the  paternal  mansion ;  and  he  called  out  to  one  of  the 
8  rvants  (for  there  were  a  gi-eat  many  of  them  running  hither  and 
thither   on   strange    errands)    and   said,    "  Come  heie — what   is   all 


138  SELFISH  MORALITY. 

this  ?"  And  the  servant  said,  in  his  great  haste  (for  he  had  hut  time 
for  a  hasty  reply)  "  Thy  brother  is  come.  This  feast  is  of  thy  father's 
making,  for  joy  of  his  restoration,"  And  the  young  man  was  angry. 
So  angry  was  he  that  he  would  not  come  in. 

As  near  as  we  can  learn,  when  this  younger  son  went  away  from 
his  father's  house,  he  went,  not  only  to  the  great  grief  of  his  father, 
but  with  the  express  disapprobation  of  the  elder  brother.  And,  as 
near  as  we  can  learn,  the  elder  brother  then  dismissed  him  from  all 
further  sympathy,  and  from  all  further  inquuy.  We  do  not  learn,  at 
any  rate,  that  he  made  any  question  as  to  where  he  had  gone,  or  what 
had  happened  to  him.  But  there  were  tidings  of  the  absent  one,  be- 
cause it  is  declared  that  he  had  wasted  his  substance  in  riotous  living, 
and  with  harlots.  That  is  all.  The  elder  brother  neither  went  for 
him,  nor  sent  for  him.  Nor  did  he  show  any  anxiety  about  his  re- 
covery. And  when  he  did  come  back  he  was  angry.  All  the  natural 
affections  that  should  have  rejoiced  seemed  to  have  been  deadened  in 
him. 

He  was  a  good  man,  you  know — this  elder  brother.  It  is  not  to 
be  supposed  that  he  cheated  anybody.  He  was  fair  in  his  bargains. 
It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  he  diverted  the  revenue,  or  swore  false 
oaths  of  any  kind.  He  was  a  respectable  man.  He  was  a  moral 
man.  He  every  day  went  to  the  paternal  mansion  and  discharged 
every  duty  that  was  incumbent  upon  him.  He  was  a  proper  liver.  He 
restrained  inordinate  appetites.  He  was  not  a  di-unkard.  Neither  was 
he  a  lascivious  man.  He  was  a  good  man,  a  respectable  man — this 
elder  brother.  The  only  thing  that  seemed  to  be  wrong  about  him 
was  that  he  had  not  any  heart — and  that  is  a  good  deal  for  a  man  to 
have  left  out  of  him.  His  brother  he  did  not  care  for.  He  had  been 
gone  ;  and  it  did  not  seem  to  burden  or  afflict  him.  He  had  taken  no 
pains  for  his  restoration.  When  he  came  from  the  field,  on  what  point 
did  he  get  angry — this  respectable,  decorous,  exemplary  brother,  that 
had  staid  at  home  to  be  virtuous  ?  Why,  that  he  had  never  had  such 
a  spontaneous  burst  of  joy  over  him  as  was  manifested  over  this  scape- 
grace of  humanity  who  had  come  back,  after  spending  his  father's 
"  substance  with  riotous  living." 

It  would  take  a  miracle  to  get  enthusiastic  over  such  a  man  as  this 
elder  brother.  There  was  not  a  thing  about  him  to  kindle  a  fii-e  of 
enthusiasm  with.  He  was  hard,  he  was  unsympathizing,  he  was  cold 
to  every  one  but  himself  Faithful  ?  Yes,  mechanically  faithful.  And 
so  are  machines.  But  they  are  without  benevolence,  without  sym- 
pathy, and  without  self-sacrificing  succor  for  those  who  are  in  trouble. 
He  did  not  pity  sin. 


SELFISH  MORALITY.  139 

Now,  any  man  who  only  hates  sin  is  of  the  devil — for  the  devil 
hates,  though  he  does  not  hate  sin.  Sin  is  to  be  pitied  ;  and  no  hatred 
is  right  that  is  not  mingled  with  pity.  This  elder  brother  did  not 
care  for  the  restoration  of  the  younger  brother.  "  It  is  his  lookout," 
was  his  philosophy.  "He  must  lie  down  on  the  bed  he  has  made. 
He  chose  his  course,  and  let  him  follow  that  course.  I  chose  my  course, 
and  you  see  what  it  has  eventuated  in.  I  trust  I  may  say,  without  flat- 
tery, that  virtue  in  me  has  brought  forth  its  appropriate  reward."  But 
this  younger  brother  he  did  not  care  for.  Nay,  he  was  very  angry 
tliat  the  father  cared  for  him.  The  old  man  was  getting  weak  in  his 
old  age,  and  had  brought  back  this  son,  and  was  opening  the  house, 
and  pouring  out  the  treasure,  and  calling  in  the  neighbors,  and  there 
was  the  sound  of  music  and  dancing  in  the  house — for  Christ  was  not 
afraid  to  have  folks  dance  when  he  made  a  parable.  He  made  men 
merry,  and  made  them  dance,  and  life  was  life,  when  he  was  making  a 
picture  for  the  instruction  of  the  times.  And  the  elder  brother  was 
angry  that  the  restoration  of  the  younger  brother  excited  such  trans- 
ports of  delight,  while  his  cold,  stolid  selfishness  never  excited  one 
single  flash  of  enthusiasm — not  one. 

Well,  the  parable  ends  here ;  but  before  I  go  further,  I  wish  to  call 
to  your  view  another  touch  that  is  omitted  in  our  observation,  too 
often;  and  that  is,  that  the  old  father  did  not  swear  at  this  wayward 
son,  nor  thunder  indignation  at  him,  as  you  and  1  would  have  been  very 
likely  to  do.  The  beauty  of  the  paternal  love  is  kept  up  all  the 
way  through.  While  the  father  has  been  so  lenient  and  forbearing  to 
his  dissipated  son,  and  brought  him  to  his  heart,  in  a  moment,  without 
probation,  in  utter  faith ;  so,  on  the  other  hand,  when  the  hatefulness 
of  this  selfish  elder  brother  was  shown,  and  that  right  in  the  gush  of 
the  father's  joy,  he  expostulated  with  him  just  as  tenderly  as  a  mother 
with  her  child,  and  said  to  him,  "  Thou  art  ever  with  me.  All  that  I 
have  is  thine.  Why  should  I  make  a  special  ofiering.  You  have 
everything  all  the  time.  It  was  meet  that  we  should  make  merry,  and 
be  glad,  for  this  thy  brother.  He  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again.  He 
,  was  lost,  and  is  found."  There  was  no  reproach.  There  was  no  bit- 
terness. So  that  even  toward  this  other  kind  of  sin — the  sin  of  sordid 
selfishness — God  is  very  patient.  God  is  very  sorry  for  the  misej-. 
God  is  very  sorry  for  the  proud  moralist.  God  is  very  sony  for  the 
self-righteous.  God  is  very  sorry  for  hypocrisy.  God  is  very  sorry  for 
everything  that  goes  wrong,  and  that  stumbles.  God  is  a  father ;  and 
if  you  go  wrong  by  your  passions,  He  is  sorry  for  that.  And  if  you  go 
wrong  by  your  selfishness,  He  is  sorry  for  that.  If  you  sin  with  the 
clenched  hands  of  avarice.  He  is  sorry  for  that.  And  He  is  willing  to 
help  anybody,  whatever  may  be  the  way  in  which  he  has  gone  astray. 


140  SELFISH  MORALITY. 

He  is  willing  to  be  gentle,  to  be  lenient  toward  him.     He  is  willing  to 
•  be  hel^jful,  and  to  bring  him  back  by  the  great  power  of  His  heart's 
love. 

Dismissing,  then,  the  story,  let  us  see  if  there  are  not  in  it  some 
points  of  application  which  we  should  do  well  to  take  heed  to.  Every 
one  can  see  that  Christ  meant  us  to  put  the  elder  brother  below  the 
younger.  He  so  constructed  this  admirable  little  drama,  that  every- 
body, after  reading  it,  would  take  sides  with  the  young  brother  against 
the  old  brother.  The  reason  is  not  that  the  wickedness  of  the  younger 
brother  was  venal  and  slight ;  because  everybody  who  reads  it  feels  that 
it  was  very  wicked.  Everybody  feels  the  disgracefulness  of  his  career. 
Our  sympathy  with  him  does  not  touch  the  wrong-doing  at  all.  Our 
sympathy  is  on  account  of  the  resiliancy,  the  rebound,  that  was  in  him. 
The  point  of  his  recuperableness  is  where  our  sympathy  comes  in.  We 
do  not  say  that  he  was  unblameworthy.  We  do  not  say  that  his 
vices  were  mere  foibles  and  faults.  We  do  not  say,  "  Oh,  the  young 
will  be  young ;  they  must  sow  their  wild  oats."  We  do  not  say 
anything  of  the  kind.  The  story  is  so  drawn  that  everybody  feels  the 
exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin  in  his  conduct.  And  yet  when  it  is  finished 
every  one  feels,  "Bad  as  he  is,  I  would  rather  be  he  than  to  be  the 
other,"  And  I  think  the  Saviour  meant  that  that  should  be  the  feeling. 
At  the  bottom  the  young  man  had  goodness.  The  top  was  all  bad  in 
him.  The  elder  brother  was  good  at  the  top,  but  at  the  bottom  he 
was  all  oorrupt.  In  the  sight  of  God,  men  who  are  outwardly  righteous, 
who  are  without  sympathy  for  their  fellow-men,  who  are  selfish,  who 
are  heartless,  who  are  self-content  and  self-seeking,  are  worse,  and  are 
more  hateful,  and  are  under  a  more  terrible  condenmation,  than  those 
men  whose  genial  nature  has  taken  them  into  dissipation.  This  is  a 
thing  not  to  be  said  slightly  ;  but  if  there  is  any  one  thing  about  which 
we  may  speak  certainly  concerning  the  teaching  of  Christ,  it  is  that 
the  having  a  dead  heart  was  the  worst  wickedness  which  a  man  could 
commit  in  this  world.     There  is  nothing  worse  than  that. 

Let  us  look  at  one  or  two  other  points,  and  see  if  this  case  is  ex- 
ceptional.   Look  at  the  parable  in  the  next  chapter  to  this. 

"  There  was  a  certain  rich  man  who  was  clothed  in  purple  and  fine 
linen,  and  fared  sumptuously  every  day." 

You  recollect  that  scene.  It  is  one  of  those  transcendently  felic- 
itous Dantean  visions.  It  is  part  of  the  Inferno  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. There  was  to  be  a  conversation  between  the  saved  in  the  bosom 
of  Abraham  in  heaven,  and  one  of  the  lost  in  hell ;  and  in  selecting  the 
man  who  was  to  enact  the  part  of  the  lost,  who  was  selected  ?  A 
robber  ?  A  thief?  A  traitor  to  his  country  ?  A  man  high-handed  in 
crime  or  dissolved  in  wasting  dissipation?  No,  he  selected  a  rich  man, 


SELFISH  MORALITY.  141 

a  man  well -placed  in  the  world,   a  man  "clothed  it  purple  and  fine 
linen,"  who  "  fared  sumptuously  every  day." 

Now,  is  it  a  sin  to  be  rich  ?  No,  no,  certainly  it  is  not  a  sin  to  be 
rich.  It  is  your  duty  to  be  rich,  if  God  has  armed  you  with  the  fac- 
ulties of  wealth  making — with  the  power  of  amassing  property. 
Well,  is  it  wrong  for  a  man  to  be  "  clothed  in  purple  and  fine  linen"  ? 
Why  no.  A  man  may  be  just  as  proud  and  just  as  vain  under  drab  as 
under  purple.  -  It  is  not  what  a  man  has  on  him,  but  what  a  man  has 
in  him  that  determines  his  pride.  There  is  no  wrong  in  wearing  pur- 
ple, any  more  than  in  wearing  silk ;  and  wearing  silk  is  not  a  crime  any 
more  than  wearing  woolen  ;  and  wearing  woolen  is  not  a  crime  any 
more  than  wearing  tow.  It  is  not  the  dress,  but  the  reason  why  the 
dress  is  worn,  that  determines  the  right  or  the  wi'ong.  It  is  what  the 
dress  covers  that  is  to  be  commended  or  condemned.  This  man  was 
rich ;  but  that  was  not  faulty.  He  was  "  clothed  in  purple  and  fine 
linen  ;"  but  that  was  not  blameworthy.  "  He  fared  sumptuously  every 
day  ;"  and  if  he  carried  it  to  the  degree  of  dissipation,  and  violated  the 
law  of  love,  he  did  wrong  ;  but  if  not,  he  was  no  worse  for  that.  It 
is  not  a  sin  for  a  man,  if  he  be  able,  to  spread  an  abundant  table.  And 
a  man  commits  no  sin  if  he  be  a  hearty  eater,  provided  he  is  active, 
and  keeps  within  the  bounds  of  digestion.  And  he  commits  no  sin  in 
eating  good  things — delicacies  and  the  like — if  he  gets  them  honestly, 
and  does  not  go  to  excess  in  eating  them.  It  was  the  kernel  that  "was 
meant  to  be  eaten,  and  not  the  cob.  A  mah  that  has  the  means  has 
the  right  to  spread  a  generous  table.  It  was  not  that,  then,  that  was 
against  him. 

"  There  was  a  certain  beggar  named  Lazarus,  which  was  laid  at  his  gate, 
full  of  sores,  and  desiring  to  be  fed  with  the  crumbs  which  fell  from  the 
rich  man's  table;  moreover,  the  dogs  came  and  licked  his  sores.'' 

Now  look  at  the  exquisite  implication.  There  is  not  a  word  said ; 
but  you  know,  as  well  as  I  do,  that  that  poor  beggar  came  there, 
and  that  the  rich  man  was  too  big  to  spend  his  time  lookino-  after 
beggars.  He  had  seen  the  loathsome  wretch ;  but  he  was  not 
enough  moved  by  compassion  to  send  him  a  morsel.  He  never  sent 
anything  to  him.  He  never  took  even  his  off-cast  purple  and  fine 
linen  for  the  clothing  of  the  beggar.  We  are  left  to  understand  that 
this  well-dressed  man,  this  man  that  was  rich,  and  was  "  clothed  in 
purple  and  fine  linen,"  and  that  "fared  sumptuously  every  day,"  used  his 
liches  and  luxuries  just  for  his  own  selfish  self  That  was  the  trouble. 
There  was  the  man  right  befoi-e  him,  groaning;  and  the  do"-s  were 
kinder  than  the  rich  man.  They  did  play  doctor  and  nurse  to  the  poor 
fellow's  wounds  ;  but  the  rich  man  cared  not  a  particle  for  him.  And 
he  went  to  hell,  where  he  ought  to  have  gone — if  anybody  ought  to  go 


142  SELFISH  MORALITT. 

there.  A  man  whose  opportunities,  whose  education,  whose  p.rov- 
idential  mercies,  have  lifted  him  into  strength  and  amplitude  of  means, 
and  who  employs  the  regality  of  God's  bounty — his  own  reason,  his 
own  executive  skill,  his  own  genius  and  accomplishments,  all  his  means 
and  treasures — only  to  wrap  himself  round  and  round  and  round  with 
the  silken,  soft  web  of  selfishness — if  he  be  not  damnable,  none  is.  And 
the  higher,  the  brighter,  the  stronger  and  the  more  he  is  in  the  sight  of 
men,  the  worse  it  is  for  him;  for  the  greater  is  the  prostitution  of  his 
power,  and  the  greater  is  the  perversion  of  himself.  No  man  can  live 
in  God's  government  with  selfishness  without  being  a  traitor.  There 
is  no  virtue,  no  morality,  no  respectability,  where  men's  hearts  are  not 
controlled  by  sympathy  and  by  love.  The  indispensable  condition  of 
every  element  of  manhood  is,  that  it  should  have  vital  relations  to  love. 
If  it  have  not  these  relations,  it  is  damnable,  not  for  what  it  is,  but  for 
what  it  misses  and  lacks. 

There  is  another  scene  recorded  in  the  twenty-first  chapter  of  Mat- 
thew, which  is  even  more  pronounced,  if  it  were  possible,  than  this. 
That  you  may  know  exactly  to  whom  he  said  this,  I  will  read  the 
twenty-third  verse : 

"When  he  was  come  into  the  temple,  the  chief  priests  and  elders  of  the 
people  came  unto  him  as  he  was  teachmg,  and  said,  '  By  what  authority 
dost  thou  these  things  V  " 

Jle  goes  into  a  discussion  with  them ;  and  in  that  discussion  he 
gives  the  account,  or  rather  the  short  parable,  of  the  two  sons. 

"  A  certain  man  had  two  sons  ;  and  he  came  to  the  first,  and  said,  '  Son, 
go  and  work  to-day  in  my  vine}'ard.'  He  answered  and  said,  '  I  will  not '; 
but  afterward  he  repented,  and  went.  And  he  came  to  the  second,  and 
said  likewise.  And  he  answered  and  said,  '  I  go,  sir,'  and  went  not. 
Whether  of  them  twain  did  the  will  of  his  father.  They  say  unto  hini, 
'  The  first.'  Jesus  saith  unto  them,  '  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  that  the  publi- 
cans and  harlots  go  into  the  kingdom  of  God  before  you.'  " 

This  Jesus  said  to  the  chief  priests  ;  to  the  elders  of  the  people  ; 
to  the  most  religious  men  that  there  were  at  that  time  ;  to  those  that 
were  the  most  eminent  and  the  most  respectable  ;  to  those  that  stood 
highest,  and  that  were  examplers  of  morality. 

"For  John  came  unto  you  in  the  way  of  righteousness,  and  ye  believed 
him  not ;  but  the  publicans  and  the  harlots  believed  him.  And  ye,  when 
ye  had  seen  it,  repented  not  afterward,  that  ye  might  believe  him." 

What  is  the  point  of  condemnation  here "?  Not  that  harlotry  is 
more  venial  than  other  immoral  courses.  Not  that  a  moral  man  is 
worse  than  a  dissipated  man.  It  is  the  question  of  recoverability.  It 
is  a  question  of  the  possibility  of  a  man's  being  cured.  And  the 
declaration,  of  course,  is,  that  a  sinner — that  is,  a  publican — knows  his 
deterioration,  and  knows  the  wickedness  of  it.  There  is  a  conscience 
behind  his  wrong-doing,  and  that  conscience  gives  him  a  chance  to  re 
cover.   He  recognizes  the  fact  that  his  heart  is  wicked,  wicked,  wicked; 


SELFISH  MORALITY.  143 

and  there  may  come  a  time  when  hope  and  mercy  and  divine  call  shall 
come  to  him.  And  then,  in  that  hour,  he  will  not  pretend  to  be  good, 
he  will  confess  his  sins ;  and  nothing  will  stand  between  him  and  salva- 
tion. 

But  a  Pliarisee,  who  has  been  building  himself  up  by  his  morality, 
is  so  good,  so  respectable,  so  observant ;  he  has  so  few  faults,  and  so 
many  excellencies,  that  when  the  word  of  God  comes  to  him,  he  does 
not  believe  that  he  is  a  sinner.  It  is  harder,  therefore,  to  convict  such 
a  man  ;  and  the  chances  of  his  coming  into  the  kingdom  of  God  are 
less,  than  in  the  case  of  the  immoral  man.  He  thinks  so  well  of 
himself  that  the  immoral  man,  or  the  harlot,  is  more  likely  to  go 
into  God's  kingdom  than  he  is.  The  immoral  man  knows  that  he  sins, 
and  acknowledges  it;  the  harlot  is  conscious  of  being  a  great  sinner, 
and  says  of  harlotry,  "  It  is  a  hideous  sin ;"  so  that,  after  all,  they  are 
more  accessible  to  recuperative  influences  than  the  moralist  who  spends 
most  of  the  time  in  being  proper,  and  the  rest  of  the  time  in  jDraisino- 
himself  for  it. 

To  bring  it  a  little  nearer  home,  there  are  a  great  many  of  you  by 
whom  perhaps  this  discourse  is  not  so  much  needed ;  and  yet,  there  are 
many  of  you  who  do  not  think  it  comes  home  to  you,  that  ought  to  take 
it  home  to  yourselves.  If  there  be  any  person  here  who,  being  a  mem- 
ber of  the  church,  baptized  early,  brought  up  by  Christian  parents, 
having  received  dissuasions  from  evil,  and  warnings  against  evil  com- 
pany, so  that  he  has  held  himself  wholly  aloof  from  the  wicked  and 
the  over-tempted ;  if  there  be  such  a  person  here,  who  has  not  only  a 
horror  of  wickedness,  but  a  horror  of  ^\'icked  men  ;  if  there  be  a  per- 
son here  whose  heart,  when  bad  men  are  brought  to  grief,  is  steeled 
against  sympathy,  and  who  stands  in  the  midst  of  the  tempted  and 
sinning  mass  ol  men  without  anything  that  makes  him  feel  that  he  is 
brother  to  them,  and  without  any  responsive  thought  in  his  heart, — he 
is  standing  in  the  place  of  the  elder  brother. 

Thei-e  is  not  a  man  that  lives  who  is  not  your  brother.  There  is 
not  a  man  that  carries  the  load  of  his  own  transgression  ;  there  is  not 
a  man  that  is  harried  through  pain  and  through  nerve,  who  is  not 
joined  to  you.  You  are  brother  to  every  man,  though  he  is  wicked, 
and  though  his  wickedness  has  found  him  out,  though  perhaps  it  will 
not  leave  him  to  the  very,  end,  and  though  he  may  die  in  his  sins. 
His  degradation  and  sin,  though  his  case  may  seem  hopeless,  are  no 
reason  why  the  house  of  your  heart  should  be  shut  against  him. 
There  should  be  a  heart  open  to  him  ;  and  it  should  be  your  heart. 
Because  you  are  Christian  or  moral,  you  should  be  more  considerate  of 
those  who  are  not  so.     But  if  you  shut  your  heart,  and  say,  "  I  live 


144  SELFISH  MORALITY. 

virtuously,  and  I  therefore  am  better  than  these  men  who  live  unvir- 
tuously  ;  and  if  they  will  live  unvirtuously  they  must  take  the  conse- 
quences ;  it  is  none  of  my  business,"  beware  ;  for  that  is  not  the  spirit 
of  the  Master. 

There  are  a  great  many  of  you  who  have  an  ideal  in  life.  Ideals 
are  very  intangible ;  but,  after  all,  there  are  very  few  things  which  are 
so  potential  in  life  as  an  ideal  in  an  energetic  nature — the  pattern  which 
he  sets  up  before  him,  and  toward  which  he  is  forming  his  whole  life. 
There  are  a  great  many  whose  ideal  of  life  is  self-culture  and  refine- 
ment. They  are  toiling  to  keep  themselves  from  all  coarseness ;  and 
that  is  right.  They  strive  to  keep  themselves  from  all  that  is  degrad- 
ing ;  and  that  is  right.  Then-  ideal  of  life  is,  that  yet  they  shall  be 
able  to  secure  a  place  where  no  rude  wind  will  come  on  them,  and 
where  they  will  be  shielded  from  the  crashing  discords  of  this  world. 
It  is  their  ideal  of  life  that  they  will  by  and  by  be  able  to  build  their 
crystal  dome  so  high  that  they  shall  not  hear  the  groans  and  sighs  and 
noises  that  come  from  the  wickedness  of  men — so  high  that  their  hearts 
will  be  separated  from  quick  sympathy  with  the  hearts  of  men  that 
travail  in  pain. 

If  God  gave  you  genius ;  if  God  gave  you  imagination ;  if  God  gave 
you  tender  sensibility ;  if  God  gave  you  love  for  music,  and  love  for 
literature,  he  did  not  give  you  these  things  as  so  many  feathers  put  into 
the  nest  of  selfishness,  to  be  pressed  by  your  breast  alone.  God  gave 
you  these  royal  lights  that  you  might  use  them,  first  for  yourselves, 
and  then  also  for  others.  You  are  joined  to  your  kind ;  and  if  you  are 
like  your  Father  in  heaven,  who  '■'  maketli  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil 
and  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust;"  if  you 
have  all  excellencies,  while  they  are  buikiing  you  up  in  refinement  and 
virtue,  they  will  at  the  same  time  lead  you  to  pity  those  who  are  in 
transgression. 

One  word  more,  and  only  one ;  and  that  is  with  reference  to  a  dan- 
ger which  merchantmen,  who  are  seeking  wealth,  are  subject  to,  and 
ought  to  be  warned  against.  Beware  of  taking  the  power  that  wealth 
gives  you,  to  build  a  house  with  walls  so  thick  that  you  cannot  hear  the 
sounds  of  men  who  sigh  in  the  street.  Beware  that  you  do  not  build 
your  banqueting-hall  so  that  y^u  cannot  see  the  beggar  full  of  sores 
that  lies  at  your  door.  Beware  of  using  your  virtue  and  your  prosper- 
ity as  means  of  separating  yourselves  from  that  great  sinning,  sufiEering 
mass  of  mankind  to  which  Christ  came,  and  to  which  he  sends  you, 
that,  in  your  place,  imitating  Ivlm,  you  may  be  according  to  the  meas- 
ui'e  of  your  strength  a  saviour,  as  he  was. 

There  is  nothing  that  you  may  not  have.     Build  yourselves  up  in 


SELFISH  MORALITY.  145 

all  morality,  and  in  all  excellence,  and  in  all  refinement,  and  in  all  art, 
and  in  all  beauty,  and  in  the  power  of  wealth,  and,  if  need  be,  in  all 
publicity.  These  are  always  right  when  you  have  a  heart  of  love  to 
vivify  them,  and  direct  them,  and  control  them.  But  when  they 
change  the  heart,  and  leave  you  an  idol  of  selfishness,  woe  to  you ! 
The  publicans  and  the  harlots  shall  go  into  the  kingdom  of  God  before 
such  a  man. 

Beware  of  refined  selfishness.  Beware  of  aesthetic  selfishness.  Be- 
ware of  aristoci'atic  selfishness.  Beware  of  the  selfishness  of  prosperity 
and  of  respectability.  Beware  of  the  temptation  of  the  devil.  Beware 
of  anything  that  shall  make  you  indifierent  to  the  sufferings  and  to 
the  condition  of  those  who  are  cast  down  by  reason  of  their  sins — for 
you,  in  your  estate,  are  sinners,  dependent,  every  hour  and  every  mo- 
ment, on  the  goodness  of  a  pitying  God.  Be  you  to  your  fellows  what 
God  is  to  you. 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON 


Grant  unto  U9,  our  Heavenly  Father,  that  same  blessed  invitation  that 
hath  so  often  brought  us  to  thee,  and  so  often  made  the  way  familiar  and 
easy  to  be  trodden.  For  it  is  not  our  outward  want  alone  that  can  bring 
us  to  thee.  We  turn  everywhere,  and  seek  succor  in  everything  until  we 
have  learned  how  blessed  it  is  to  seek  our  good  of  thee.  And  then,  the 
memories  of  past  mercies ;  then  the  sense  of  thy  great  goodness  and  con- 
descension, and  the  beauty  of  thy  face,  revealed  to  us  in  times  past,  awaken 
in  us  earnest  desires.  Our  souls  long  for  thee  more  than  all  else;  for  thoa 
only  canst  fill  the  solitary  hour,  and  thou  only  canst  cheer  the  despondency 
which  comes  to  all;  and  thou  only  canst  bring  peace  to  the  heart  disturb- 
ed by  pride  and  selfishness;  and  thou  art  the  only  physician  of  the  soul ; 
and  all  other  things  are  but  poor ;  all  other  things  but  disguise  and  do 
not  cure.  It  is  thy  soul  tbat  cures  our  soul.  It  is  thy  love  that  teaches 
us  to  love.  It  is  thy  goodness  that  begets  goodness  in  us.  Be  pleased 
then,  O  our  Father !  to  call  us  by  our  names,  that  we  may  know  that  we  are 
remembered  of  thee,  and  are  sought  out  of  thee  and  are  borne  in  everlast- 
ing remembrance. 

We  thank  thee  that  thou  hast  made  known  to  us  thy  paternity.  And 
though  we  do  not  understand  it,  and,  with  the  little  light  of  our  own  expe- 
rience, cannot  follow  thee  as  Father  of  the  wide  scope  of  universal  govern- 
ment, nor  solve  all  the  strange  things  that  come  to  pass  beneath  thy  wide 
extended  sway,  yet  we  are  coatent.  We  leave  to  the  future  these  insoluble 
mysteries.  We  trust  in  thy  love.  We  trust  in  thy  justice,  and  in  thy  truth. 
We  believe  that  thou  wilt  not  forsake  any  that  put  tlieir  trust  in  thee;  and 
that  whatever  things  are  dark  now,  shall  be  cleared  by  and  by.  Thou  art 
saying  to  us,  ••  What  I  do  now  ye  know  not ;  but  ye  shall  know  hereafter;" 
and  to  that  hereafter  we  remit  all  our  care,  ail  our  anxiety  and  outreaching 
questions,  and  trust  thee.  Even  as  children  trust  their  parents  long  before 
they  can  understand  them,  and  trust  in  simplicity,  tiust  unquestioning,  and 
unreasoning,  so  we  desire  to  abide  in  thee.  Thou  art  good ;  and  thou  doest 
good;  and  Love  is  thy  name;  our  hearts  go  up  imto  thee;  and  in  thy 
uame  will  we  trust. 


146  SELFISH  MORALITY. 

Be  pleased,  in  thine  infinite  mercy,  to  forgive  all  our  past  sinfulness,  and 
to  cleanse  our  hearts  from  all  things  that  are  offensive  to  thee,  and  make  us 
lovely  altogether  in  thy  sight.  And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  help  us,  and  that 
we  may  not  be  discouraged  as  we  find  difficulties  and  obstacles  in  our  way. 
May  we  still  press  forward,  and  to  the  "end  may  we  walk  along  the  straight 
and  narrow  way,  that  finally  we  may  be  saved. 

"We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest,  to-night,  upon  all  that 
are  gathered  together.  If  there  be  darkness  without,  may  it  be  calm  and  light 
within.  And  grant  that  here  in  thy  sanctuary  we  may  find  a  home : 
grant  that  here  we  may  find  our  brethren,  and  rejoice  with  them.  We  pray 
that  thou  wilt  prepare  us  by  the  labor,  and  by  the  enjoyment,  and  by  the  in- 
struction of  the  Sabbath  day,  for  the  toil  of  the  campaigning  week.  May 
we  go  forth  to  our  avocations,  to  jowx  care,  and  to  our  responsibility  with 
the  presence  of  the  Lord  forevermore  overshadowing  us.  May  we  not  for- 
get the  lessons  of  the  sanctuary.  May  we  find  them  every  hour  a  shield,  or 
a  weapon  of  offence,  against  wickedness.  May  we  be  strengthened.  May  our 
faith  not  fail  us  in  all  the  darkness  of  the  way.  May  there  still  be  the  light 
of  thy  truth  that  shall  guide  us.  And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  prepare  us, 
by  the  thousand  experiences  of  thy  providence— by  good  and  evil  that  are 
coming  upon  us ;  by  pain,  and  by  fears,  and  by  disappointments,  and  by 
expectations  fulfilled,  and  by  all  the  blessings  of  hope  and  love,  and  by  the 
medicine  of  sorrow  and  trouble — to  be  men  in  Christ  Jesus.  Prepare  us  to 
be  worthy  of  our  name — sons  of  Oocl.  Prepare  us  for  dying ;  through 
death  lead  us  gently  into  that  life  which  shall  know  no  dying.  And  there, 
in  thy  presence,  we  will  give  the  praise  of  our  salvation  to  the  Father,  the 
Son,  and.  the  Holy  Spirit.    Aynen. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Heavenly  Father,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  add  thy  bless- 
ing to  the  word  of  exhortation  and  instruction.  May  we  take  heed  to  our 
ways.  May  we  remember  that  to  love  the  Lord  our  God  with  all  our  heart 
and  our  neighbor  as  ourself  is  the  law  ;  and  may  we  feel  that  in  breaking 
this,  the  law  of  the  realm  is  broken.  May  we  be  afraid  of  all  sin.  May 
we  be  afraid  of  heartless  selfishness.  Let  us  not  be  separated  from  our 
kind.  And  by  as  much  as  we  are  lifted  above  them,  may  we  use  the  space 
to  draw  them  up  to  us  again.  And  so  in  every  advance,  may  we  bring 
some  with  us.  Grant  that  we  may  more  and  more  interpret  thy  nature, 
and  understand  more  and  more  what  is  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  And  bring 
us,  at  last,  through  our  earthly  experiences,  purified,  glorified,  into  the  heav- 
enly kingdom,  where  we  will  praise  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Spirit. 
A]n,en. 


IX. 

Importance  of  Little  Things. 


IMPORTANCE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS. 


"  The  a  Saul  said  to  Jonathan,  Tell  me  what  thou  hast  done.  And  Jonathan 
told  him,  and  said,  I  did  but  taste  a  little  honey  with  the  end  of  the  rod  that 
was  in  mine  hand,  and  lo,  I  must  die.  And  Saul  answered,  God  do  so,  and 
more  also ;  for  thou  shalt  surely  die,  Jonathan," — Samuel  XIV.,  43,  44. 


There  was  never  a  better  cause  worse  plead  than  this  of  Jona- 
than. The  right  was  all  on  his  side,  but  his  pleading  was  good  for 
nothing.  We  shall  understand  this  better,  if  we  go  back  now,  and  come 
down  for  a  few  minutes  along  the  history  that  led  to  this  transaction, 
as  it  is  contained  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  chapters  of  the  first 
of  Samuel.  We  must  not  carry  back  modern  ideas  to  interpret  tlie 
ancient  ideas.  We  must  not  imagine  that  Israel  at  this  time  was  a 
civilized  people.  We  must  not  imagine  cities  such  as  existed  in  the 
time  of  our  Saviour.  They  were  a  rude  people.  Although  in  some 
respects  they  were  superior  to  their  neighbors,  in  most  respects  they 
were  not  a  whit  higher  in  civilization  than  the  Philistines  themselves. 
A  better  moral  light  they  had ;  but  their  social  habits  were  no  better. 
Their  cities  were  rude  assemblages  of  ruder  huts.  Their  army  Avas  a 
mob.  Chance  determined  their  battles.  Sometimes  it  was  on  the  one 
side,  and  sometimes  on  the  other,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  men 
engaged.  And  Israel  had  sunk  to  a  very  low  point  at  this  time.  Saul 
was  a  king  not  a  whit  more  royal  than  an  average  Indian  chief  on  our 
prairies.  He  Avas  a  king  without  a  palace.  He  was  a  king  Avithout 
any  of  the  circumstances  and  trappings  of  royalty  as  we  now  conceive 
of  them. 

Just  at  this  time,  Israel  was  at  such  a  point  of  depression,  having 
been  over-run  and  defeated  by  the  Philistines,  that  there  were  no 
armies  in  the  land.  And  yet,  beaten  down  as  they  were,  a  great  incur- 
sion of  the  Philistines  was  made  upon  them. 

North  of  Jerusalem,  or,  rather,  in  the  southern  part  of  Palestine,  on 
the  west,  was  the  great  plain  of  the  Philistines — a  sea  coast  or  mari- 
time plain.  And  on  the  east  Avas  the  valley  of  the  Jordan.  Inter- 
mediate, the  country  rose  in  high  mountainous  ridges,  and  yet  was 
BomcAvhat  of  the  nature  of  table-land.  Upon  the  summit  of  this 
central  part  of  southern  Palestine  was  a  very  rich  farming  or  pastoral 

SuNPAY  Evening,  Nov.  6, 1870.  t.esson  :  Psalms  II.   Hymns  (Plymouth  Collection) :  Noa. 
m.riil  3T2. 


148  IMPORTANCE  OF  LITTLE  TUINGS. 

district ;  and  along  this  ridge,  running  north  from  Jerusalem  as  far  as 
Gerezim  and  Eba^  or  Sliechim,  and  coming  down  into  the  plain,  waa 
the  great  battle-ground  of  Palestine.  It  was  back  and  forth  over  that 
country  particularly  that  these  endless  Philistine  wars  flowed.  At  this 
time,  the  Philistines  had  come  up  with  an  enormous  army — with  thou- 
sands of  chariots — the  chariots  probably  not  ascending  further  than 
the  bottom  of  the  ravines  of  the  maritime  plain.  Israel  had  scattered 
and  fled  every  whither  from  the  face  of  the  enemy.  Saul  had  tried 
to  collect  about  six  hundred  men  ;  and  he  was  lying  at  the  uttermost 
space  in  Gibeah  of  Benjamin.  And  he  and  Jonathan  alone  had  arms. 
There  were  no  swords ;  there  were  no  spears  ;  there  was  no  armor.  The 
Philistines  Avould  not  permit  them  to  have  forges.  If  they  needed  to 
sharpen  their  hoes,  or  their  spades,  or  the  colters  of  their  plows,  they 
must  go  down  into  Philistia.  To  keep  them  disarmed  this  method  was 
resorted  to. 

Well,  this  was  the  condition  of  things.  There  were  three  great  par- 
ties of  the  Philistines  that  had  gone  spoiling,  one  northward,  and  an- 
other southward,  and  another  eastward,  ravaging  all  the  lands ;  and 
here  was  this  little  band  of  six  hundred  men,  and  the  king,  lying  under 
a  tree  at  Gibeah  watching  them. 

Otie  day,  moved  by  one  of  those  strange  inspirations  which 
sometimes  come  to  men,  looking  up  the  ravine  (on  either  side  of 
which  were  two  very  high  clifls — one  of  which  was  named  "  Thorn 
Bu'ih,"  and  the  other  "Shining  Cliff,"  because  it  w^as  white  and 
glistening,  the  limestone  there  being  of  a  chalky  nature) — looking 
Hj>  that  ravine,  with  these  two  cliffs  (the  Thorn  Clifi"  and  the 
FAiining-Faced  Cliff)  on  either  side,  they  saw  the  garrison  of  the 
'Philistines  upon  the  top.  And  Jonathan  said  to  his  armor-bearer, 
"  Let  us  climb  up  there."  Two  men !  "Well,  he  had  a  brave  fel- 
low for  an  armor-bearer ;  for  he  said,  "  You  go,  and  I  will  follow !" 
And  Jonathan  said,  "  If  they  say,  '  Stand  still  where  you  are,'  I  shall 
take  that  for  a  sign  that  God  does  not  mean  us  to  succeed ;  but  if  they 
say,  '  Come  up  hither,'  then  I  shall  take  it  for  a  sign  that  the  Lord  has 
delivered  them  into  our  hands."  And  so  they  began  to  climb  up  the 
ravine  until  they  were  discerned  by  the  garrison  ;  and  they  looked  over 
at  them ;  and — perhaps  in  derision,  I  do  not  know  why — some  fellow 
said,  "Come  up  hither,  and  I  will  tell  you  somewhat."  And  Jona- 
chan  said,  "Let  us  go  up  ;  for  the  Lord  hath  delivered  them  into  our 
hands."  And  they  went  up.  And  the  moment  they  reached  the  top 
they  laid  about  them  most  violently ;  and  Jonathan  and  his  armor- 
bearer  slew  twenty  men  before  they  knew  what  they  were  doing — and 
that,  too,  as  it  is  said,  in  the  space  of  half  an  acre,  or  lohat  a  yoke  of 
oxen  might  plow  in  a  day. 


IMPORTANCE  OF  LITTLE  THINaS.  149 

At  this  time  there  occurred,  apparently,  an  earthquake.  For  it  ia 
said  that  there  was  a  great  shaking  of  the  ground.  This  precipitate 
attack,  this  slaughter  of  a  few  men,  and  the  rumor  of  it  that  went  out, 
produced  one  of  those  panics  which  I'ude  and  undiscipUned  armies  are 
subject  to.  They  did  not  know  what  ailed  them,  and  they  all  turned 
to  flee ;  and,  thinking  that  the  enemy  were  upon  them,  they  began 
to  strike  right  and  left  to  slay  the  enemy,  and  slew  themselves  with 
terrible  slaughter. 

Saul  was  watching  on  one  side  and  on  the  other,  and  tidings  were 
sent  down  to  him  that  there  was  a  great  movement  in  the  camp  above ; 
and  he  called  for  his  men,  and  they  went  up,  and  he  with  them,  and 
began  to  pursue.  And  it  is  said  that  then  all  the  deserters  in  the  camp 
of  the  Philistines — those  that  had  gone  up  to  them — the  turn-coats — 
the  moment  the  Philistines  began  to  flee,  whipped  out  their  weapons 
and  went  at  them  too,  and  began  to  slay  them.  And  all  those  who  had  hid 
themselves  in  the  caves  (for  that  whole  mountain  region  is  seamed  and 
honey-combed,  and  from  that  fact  was  a  place  of  concealment,  not  only 
for  men,  but  for  treasures) — all  those  who  had  hid  themselves,  as  soon 
as  tidings  came  to  them  that  the  Philistines  were  fleeing  (and  it  is 
astonishing  how  tidings  will  go  sometimes)  came  out  and  were  brave 
enough.  The  men  who  did  not  dare  to  do  a  thing  in  the  beginning,  and 
who  were  such  cowardly  fellows  as  to  go  over  to  the  enemy  and  make 
peace  with  them,  were  very  courageous  when  they  found  that  the  enemy 
were  discomfited,  and  were  not  afraid  to  kill  men  that  were  running 
away  from  them.  And  all  the  skulkers  and  hiders  were  courageous 
enough  when  they  were  behind  the  enemy's  back,  and  very  boldly 
smote  and  thrust  and  ran  through  men  that  were  already  vanquished 
by  fear,   borrowing  the  Philistines*  own  weapons  to  slay  them  withal. 

And  so  there  went  on  through  the  woods  a  terrible  slaughter  right 
and  left.  And  as  Saul  came  up  and  saw  what  work  was  going  on,  he 
issued  his  command  that  no  man  should  take  food  that  day.  And  the 
command  was  not  an  unreasonable  one ;  for  many  a  victory  is  lost  by 
plundering.  Seeing  the  discomfiture  of  the  enemy,  perceiving  their 
utter  overthrow,  he  knew  that  the  temptation  would  be  to  despoil  the 
camp  of  the  Philistines,  and  gather  the  plunder.  He  forbade  the 
people  from  doing  it,  in  the  general  expectation  that  they  would  be 
tempted  to  do  it.  And  it  was  a  wise  thing.  He  said,  "  Let  no  man 
eat  until  the  sun  goes  down." 

Jonathan  had  been  gone  ;  he  was  far  away,  in  hot  pursuit  of  the 
enemy  ;  and  he  did  not  hear  that  command.  And  as  he  went  through 
the  woods,  seeing  honey  dropping,  he  put  forth  his  rod  and  ate  "  a 
little."  I  do  not  know  that  he  knew  how  much  he  ate.  When  a 
man  is  very  hungry,  he  cannot  tell  how  much  "  a  little"  is.     But  ho 


150  IMPORTANCE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS. 

was  refreshed  by  what  he  ate  ;  his  waning  strength  came  again  ;  and 
he  went  on  lighting  and  chasing  the.  enemy  once  more. 

The  people  were  very  much  spent,  but  they  continued  beating  their 
adversaries  clear  on  to  sundown.  Then  they  were  permitted  to 
eat.  And  they  fell  upon  the  sheep  and  the  oxen  and  the  calves,  and 
slaughtered  them,  and  ate  them  in  their  blood,  so  hungry  were  they. 
And  they  were  reprimanded  for  that.  But  they  were  under  the  neces- 
sity of  taking  these  animals  and  eating  them  in  some  way. 

When  Saul  came  up,  he  had  it  in  his  heart  to  renew  the  pursuit 
that  night ;  and  he  consulted  the  prophet  to  see  whether  they  should 
hasten  on  and  utterly  cut  up  the  Philistines,  root  and  branch.  But  he 
got  no  answer.  And  he  said,  "  Some  one  has  committed  a  sin  ;  and 
that  is  the  reason  the  Lord  has  not  answered  me."  So  he  deter- 
mined to  cast  lots,  and  find  out  who  it  was  that  had  sinned.  And  they 
cast  lots  ;  and  the  tribes  of  the  Israelites  .were  on  one  side,  and  Saul 
and  Jonathan  were  on  the  other  ;  and  Saul  and  Jonathan  were  alone 
uncleared,  when  all  the  Israelites  had  been  cleared  ;  and  the  thing  lay 
between  them. 

"  Aud  Saul  said,  Draw  ye  near  hithei  all  the  chief  of  the  people :  and 
know  and  see  wherein  this  siu  hath  been  tliis  day.  For  as  the  Lord  liveth, 
which  saveth  Israel,  though  it  be  in  Jonathan  my  sou,  he  shall  surely  die. 
But  there  was  not  a  man  among  all  tho  people  that  answered  him.  Then 
said  he  unto  all  Israel,  Be  ye  on  one  side,  and  I  and  Jonathan  my  son  will  be 
on  the  other  side.  And  the  people  said  unto  Saul,  Do  what  seemeth  good 
unto  thee." 

They  were  not  our  people.  Oriental  monarchs  were  allowed  to  do 
what  they  pleased.     Occidental  democrats  are  not. 

"  Therefore  Saul  said  unto  the  Lord  God  of  Israel,  Give  a  perfect  lot.  And 
Saul  and  Jonathan  were  taken  :  but  the  people  escaped  [and  glad  they  were]. 
And  Saul  said,  Cast  lots  between  me  and  Jonathan  my  son.  [It  was  close 
work  by  this  time.]  And  Jonathan  was  taken.  Then  Saul  said  to  Jonathan, 
Tell  me  what  thou  hast  done.  And  Jonathan  told  him  and  said,  I  did  but 
taste  a  little  honey  with  the  end  of  the  rod  that  was  in  mine  hand,  and  lo,  I 
must  die.  And  Saul  answered,  God  do  so,  and  more  also ;  for  thou  shalt 
surely  die,  Jonathan." 

That  was  more  than  Roman  rigor  of  mistaken  justice.  But  the 
best  of  it  is  to  come  yet.  The  people  were  seized  with  an  inspu'ation 
of  generosity.  They  had  not  seen  the  wonderful  si^ectacle  of  deliver- 
ance wrought  by  the  bravery  of  this  one  man  in  vain. 

"  And  the  people  said  unto  Saul,  when  it  came  to  this  [obsequious  as  they 
had  been].  Shall  Jonathan  die,  who  hath  wrought  this  great  salvation  in 
Israel  ?  God  forbid :  as  the  Lord  liveth,  there  shall  not  one  hair  of  his  head 
fall  to  the  grovmd ;  for  he  hath  wrought  with  God  this  day.  So  the  people 
rescued  Jonathan,  that  he  died  not." 

Good  people!  Cowardly  people  at  first — but  they  ended  "bi'ave 
enough,  and  withstood  the  fury  of  the  king — though  I  suspect  that 
Saul  was  not  very  unwilling  to  have  his  son  rescued. 


IMPORTANCE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS.  151 

I  said  that  Saul  had  a  right  to  give  this  general  order  that  there 
should  be  no  stopping ;  that  that  day  should  be  dedicated  to  the  over- 
throw of  the  enemy;  that  no  man  should  taste  food.  And  yet,  in 
this,  as  in  all  of  Saul's  conduct,  there  was  a  certain  excess — an  im- 
moderation which  carried  it  to  rashness.  For,  while,  as  a  general 
order,  it  was  wise,  to  make  it  special  and  particular  was  not  wise. 
And  Jonathan,  when  he  was  arraigned  by  his  father,  had  two  pleas 
that  he  might  have  made,  if  he  had  been  wise  enough  to  make  them. 
The  first  was,  that  he  was  absent  when  the  command  was  given,  and 
that  he  knew  nothing  of  it  until  he  was  informed  by  the  people  after 
he  had  eaten  the  honey.  That  would  have  been  a  sufficient  plea.  Or, 
another  better  one  he  might  have  made,  and  that  is  the  one  which  he 
did  make  to  the  people.  Jonathan,  when  he  was  told  that  his  father 
had  cursed  the  man  who  should  eat  anything  that  day,  said, 

"  My  father  hath  troubled  the  land.  See,  I  pray  you,  how  mine  eyes  have 
been  enlightened,  because  I  tasted  a  little  of  this  honey.  How  much  more,  if 
haply  the  people  had  eaten  freely  to-day  of  the  spoil  of  their  enemies  which 
they  found  ?  For  had  there  not  been  now  a  much  greater  slaughter  among 
the  Philistines  ?" 

That  was  so.     If  the  people  had  been  refreshed  by  a  moderate 
amount  of  food — which  the  king  might  well  have  winked  at — thev 
might  have  bad  greater  sti'ength,  and  made  the  overthrow  still  more 
victorious.     So,  then,  he  could  have  plead  to  his  father,  "  I  did  not 
know  the  command ;  nor  could  I  have  known  it,  God's  providence 
had  placed  me  so."     But,  still  better,  he  might  have  said,  "  The  king 
commanded  that  which  was  contrary  to  the  public  welfare ;  and  I, 
acting  as  a  general  under  him,  had  a  right  to  take  the  responsibility 
and  disobey  the  command,  when  I  saw  that  the  thing  which  the  king 
desired — viz.,  the  overthrow  of  the  enemy — could  better  be  gained  by 
disobedience ;  and  I  took  the  responsibility,  and  told  the  people  to 
eat,  and  ate   myself"     That  would   have   been   a  sufficient  answer. 
For,  it  is  held  that,  while  a  subordinate  is  always  to  obey  his  leader 
under  ordinary  circumstances;  yet  no   man  is   fit  to   be  a  military 
general  who  will  not  on  occasion  take  the  responsibility  of  breaking 
an  order.     It  is  held  that  an  exigency  may  arise  in  which  the  thing  that 
the  commanding  general  desires  to  gain,  can  be  better  gained  by  disobey- 
ing his  order  than  by  obeying  it.  But  the  subordinate  must  understand 
that  if  he  breaks  the  command  it  is  at  his  own  risk ;  and  that  if  he  is 
mistaken  he  gets  the  penalty,  while  if  he  is  right  he  gets  the  reward. 
And  so,  Jonathan  seeing  that  the  way  to  carry  out  Saul's  purpose 
was  to  disobey  his  commandment,  had  a  right  to  plead  that.     Had  he 
done  so,  he  would  have  stood  before  the  king  acquitted.     But  what 
did  he  do  ?     I  said  at  the  opening  of  this  discourse  that  he  made  the 
poorest  plea  for  a  good  cause  that  ever  was  made.    Instead  of  saying, 


152  IMPORTANCE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS. 

"  I  did  not  know  your  commands ;"  instead  of  saying,  "  Under  God's 
providence  the  time  came  when  that  command  ought  to  have  been  set 
aside  for  the  sake  of  destroying  the  Philistines" — instead  of  saying 
these  things,  he  said,  "  I  did  but  taste  a  little  honey  with  the  end  of 
the  rod  that  was  in  mine  hand." 

Oh  !  It  was  such  a  little  !  Well,  is  not  a  little  always  just  enough 
for  disobedience  ?  A  little  is  as  important  as  a  great  deal,  when  it  is  the 
question  of  obedience  or  disobedience.  Besides,  there  was  in  his  heart 
the  idea  that  moral  quality  depended  in  some  sense  on  magnitude. 
And  he  was  not  alone  in  that.  We  hear  yet  a  great  deal  said  about 
little  sins  and  little  things.  Men  plead  littles,  and  littles,  and  littles. 
And  I  have  selected  my  subject  to-night,  because  it  seemed  to  me  that 
a  consideration  of  this  matter  of  magnitude  would  be  a  very  great 
help  in  clearing  many  minds  from  casuistry,  and  in  setting  forcibly 
before  you  the  importance  of  a  great  many  things  which  have  vital 
relation  to  your  safety,  yom*  character,  your  habits,  and  your  destiny, 
but  which  are  inconspicuous,  which  are  easily  passed  by,  and  which 
are  mostly  neglected. 

There  is,  I  would  say,  before  I  proceed,  a  difference  between  moral 
values.  There  are  great  moral  causes,  and  there  are  small  moral  causes. 
I  would  say  still  further,  that  men  should  not  confound  things  that  are 
.  little  with  things  that  are  great,  as  sometimes  they  do.  There  are  those 
who  think  that  to  work  on  Sunday  is  a  sin  as  great  as  to  destroy  life. 
They  make  no  distinction  between  acts.  There  is  no  perspective  in 
their  consciences.  They  get  things  mixed.  And  they  are  as  much 
afSicted  for  small  offences  as  for  the  weightiest  sins,  or  even  for  crimes. 

Now,  there  are  distinctions ;  but  they  do  not  depend  upon  conspicu- 
ity,  nor  upon  measurement,  nor  upon  weight.  It  is  not  the  amount 
of  space  that  the  thing  occupies,  nor  the  impression  which  it  produces 
upon  your  eye,  nor  any  external  circumstance  of  this  kind,  that  deter- 
mines what  is  little  and  what  is  great.  That  is  little  which  has  little 
power,  and  that  is  great  Avhich  has  great  power.  But  it  oftentimes 
happens  that  the  smallest  thing,  as  the  eye  sees  it,  and  as  the  senses  re- 
cognize it,  has  the  greatest  power,  and  therefore  is  large ;  whereas, 
volrsrainous  things,  things  huge  in  space  and  in  impression,  have  in 
them  very  little  moral  influence,  and  therefore  are  small.  But  we  are 
to  transfer  our  ideas  from  the  small  realm  of  sense  to  the  great  moral 
realm.  It  is  the  effect  which  a  thing  is  competent  to  produce  that  de- 
termines whether  it  is  gi'eat,  or  whether  it  is  little.  And  as  a  single 
grain  of  powder  has  in  it  more  power  than  twenty  tons  of  rock,  so, 
frequently,  the  smallest  circumstance  in  a  man's  moral  history  has  more 
power  in  it  than  vast  things  in  other  relations. 


IMPORTANCE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS.  153 

Little  things  become  important  as  a  part  of  a  series — that  is,  by  ag- 
gregation.    They  collect,  and  become  powerful  unities. 

A  man  asks  you  to  see,  floating  in  the  air,  the  smallest  film.  It  is 
the  merest  fragment  of  a  fragment  of  a  bit  of  wool.  You  cannot  dis- 
cern it  except  when  the  slanting  beams  of  the  sun,  through  the  win- 
dow, give  to  the  atternoon  air  the  peculiar  quality  of  revealing  what  it 
contains.  Then,  among  a  million  other  motes,  you  can  perhaps  discern 
the  tiniest  bit  of  a  floating  mote.  And  as  you  look,  you  open  your 
Avatch,  and  take  out  your  key ;  and  as  you  move  through  the  air,  that 
littlest  bit  of  woolen  fiber  chances  to  strike  the  watch  just  where  the 
key  goes  in.  And  you  wind  the  watch,  and  think  but  little  about  it. 
And  that  little  mote  is  seated  within.  And  after  a  day  or  two,  by 
winding  the  watch,  it  has  been  pushed  on.  And  it  creeps  clear  into  the 
watch.  And  in  the  course  of  a  week  it  finds  its  way  near  to  a  wheel. 
And  then  comes  another  little  bit  after  it.  Then  there  comes  a  speck ; 
and  then  another  speck.  And  in  the  course  of  months  and  months,  so 
many  little  motes  find  their  way  into  this  same  little  keyhole  that  the 
watch  is  said  to  be  "  dirty."  There  are  a  thousand  motes  inside  of  the 
watch  that  have  found  their  way  there  little  by  little.  And  what  have 
they  done?  Broken  any  of  the  wheels?  Not  one  of  them.  Have 
they  disfigured  any  of  the  works  ?  Not  at  all.  Have  they  militated 
against  the  spring?  Not  at  all.  They  merely  lie  up  against  the  pivot, 
one  and  another  and  another,  and  just  drag  it;  and  the  watch  holds 
back  just  a  little,  and  loses,  and  loses,  and  loses  time.  And  the  watch 
being  neglected,  these  little  motes,  collecting  on  the  works,  have  power 
enough,  by  multitude,  to  take  away  from  the  machinery  its  power  to 
keep  time.  They  have  destroyed  its  functions  and  its  efficiency.  There 
is  not  one  of  them  that  was  not  so  small  that  you  could  scarcely  see  it, 
unless  you  saw  it  by  the  help  of  a  sunbeam  or  a  magnifying  glass  ;  and 
yet,  coming  in  one  by  one,  adding  one  to  another,  and  lying  in  juxta- 
position, they  interfere  with  the  machinery  of  the  watch.  And  if  you 
had  taken  a  hammer  and  broken  the  watch  to  pieces,  you  would  not 
have  destroyed  its  time-keeping  qualities  more  effectually  than  they  are 
^  destroyed  by  letting  the  soil  of  the  atmosphere  into  it.  And  if  the  watch 
be  that  of  a  navigator,  the  diff'erence  in  time  caused  by  these  obstruct- 
ions may  be  just  the  difference  of  his  going  right  to  the  mouth  of  the  har- 
bor, and  his  going  upon  the  shoal.  Hence  great  interests  may  be  de- 
termined by  just  so  little  a  thing  as  a  bit  of  dust.  These  little  things 
are  very  insignificant  when  floating  in  the  air;  but  when  they  are 
brought  one  after  another  into  contact  with  sensitive  machinery,  are 
they  not  important  ?  They  cease  to  be  little  when  measured  by  what 
they  have  done.  Little  things  may  be  important  by  what  they  di"aw 
after  them. 


154  IMPOBTANGE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS. 

I  can  imagine,  in  the  visions  of  the  night,  as  the  old  miller  sleeps, 
that  a  craw-fish  comes  to  him  and  threatens  him.  You  know  what  a 
craw-fish  is.  It  is  a  homely  little  fresh-water  lobster,  that  loves  water 
and  mud.  He  threatens  the  miller  with  disaster  except  upon  some 
condition  granted.  The  surly  old  miller  laughs  to  scorn  the  threat  of 
the  craw-fish.  The  craw-fish  departs.  The  miller  by  and  by  wakes 
up,  and  starts  his  mill,  and  away  goes  the  wheel,  making  music  to  his 
ear.  The  craw-fish  goes  to  the  dam  above.  He  is  not  much.  The 
river  is  a  thousand  times  mightier  than  he ;  and  so  is  the  massive  dam. 
But  he  commences  to  bore  into  the  clay.  He  keeps  boring,  and  boring, 
and  boring,  till  by  and  by  he  has  made  a  tunnel  clear  through  to  the 
other  side  of  the  bank.  And  first  one  drop  comes  through:  and  then 
another ;  and  then  another ;  and  each  drop  takes  a  little  dirt  with  it. 
Gradually  the  hole  grows  larger  and  larger.  This  goes  on  all  day  and 
all  night ;  and  at  length  the  channel  is  so  worn  that  a  considerable 
stream  runs  through  it.  And  at  last  that  stream  becomes  a  freshet, 
and  gains  a  force  and  impetus  such  that  it  carries  everything  with  it. 
And  away  go  the  abutments  and  timbers  of  the  dam  ;  and  away  goes 
the  miller's  mill :  and  away  goes  his  house  upon  the  bank ;  and  the 
trees  and  all  thhigs  are  whelmed  in  the  flood  ! 

Now  which  is  the  stronger,  the  crawfish  or  the  miller  and  his  dam? 
The  crawfish  is  a  little  thing ;  it  was  a  small  hole  that  he  made  ;  but 
ah !  it  was  what  it  led  to  that  determines  its  importance.  The  craw- 
fish was  big  enough  for  a  beginning ;  and  there  were  other  causes 
behind  him  that  led  to  still  other  causes  ;  so  that  by  and  by  what  an 
engineer  could  scarcely  have  done  was  done  by  this  little  boring  craw- 
fish. "Whether  a  thing  be  a  trifle  or  not,  depends  upon  its  power  to 
prepare  the  way  for  another  thing ;  and  upon  the  power  of  that  thing 
to  prepare  for  yet  another  thing  ;  and  so  on.  It  depends  upon  whether 
it  is  the  first  of  a  train  or  series,  and  draws  consequences  after  it. 
There  are  thousands  of  things  which  when  you  consider  them  simply 
in  their  own  light  seem  very  insignificant,  but  which  when  you  con- 
sider them  in  relation  to  after  causes  become  of  transcendent  value. 
It  will  never  do  to  call  things  little  till  you  see  what  they  can  do. 

A  little  thing,  or  that  which  men  call  little,  may  be  very  trifling  in- 
deed for  one  purpose,  and  in  one  direction ;  and  yet,  for  another 
purpose,  and  in  another  direction,  it  may  be  extremely  potent. 

The  captain  of  a  ship  wishes  to  spread  his  sails,  and  go  out  of 
the  harbor,  and  thei*e  is  the  merest  pufi"  of  wind — only  just  enough  to 
flare  a  candle.  It  is  an  insignificant  thing,  and  a  man  has  to  wet  his 
hand  and  hold  it  up  to  know  which  way  it  comes  from.  And  the 
captain  will  never  raise  an  anchor  for  that.  He  says,  "  Pshaw  !  it  is 
but  a  breath."     It  is  of  no  use  as  a  motive  power  at  all ;  and  yet,  if 


IMPORTANCE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS.  155 

just  that  is  coming  through  a  broken  pane  of  glass  upon  an  invalid  it 
is  tremendously  powerful. 

My  mother  went  out,  after  a  siclcness,  to  the  old  brown  school- 
house  in  Litchfield,  and  sat  down  and  listened  to  an  evening  lecture  ; 
and  behind  her,  in  one  of  the  rude  windows  of  six  by  eight  glass,  a 
pane  was  broken.  The  absence  of  that  pane  there  was  very  little,  bO 
far  as  its  damage  to  the  whole  school-house  was  concerned  ;  but  there 
came  through  it  one  of  those  evening  draughts  or  breaths  of  air, 
which  was  good  for  nothing  for  moving  a  ship,  and  fell  upon  her  neck, 
and  chilled  her,  and  struck  to  her  heart ;  and  in  less  than  three  months 
she  died.  To  a  sailor  it  was  very  little  ;  but  to  her  it  was  very 
great. 

That  which  in  certain  conditions  of  mind  is  of  no  consequence,  in 
other  conditions  of  mind  may  become  omnipotent.  Tliat  which  in 
certain  states  of  mind  may  have  very  little  or  no  influence,  one  way  or 
another,  in  critical  circumstances  may  have  the  power  of  final  deter- 
mination, and  may  carry  in  it  God's  decree  for  good  or  for  evil. 

Let  us  apply  these  fomiliar  illustrations. 

In  forming  character,  little  things  go  a  great  way,  both  by  the 
power  of  aggregation,  of  which  I  have  spoken,  and  because  they  have 
critical  relations  to  mind  and  temperament,  to  times  and  seasons. 
For  all  the  three  reasons  which  I  have  alleged,  little  things  have  great 
power  in  determining  character,  when  men  are  forming  their  char- 
acters. It  is  but  a  very  small  thing  for  a  man  to  jest  at  sacred  things. 
The  vanity  of  wit  may  lead  a  young  man  to  quote  Scripture  at  the  ex- 
pense of  reverence  for  Scripture.  And  if  he  is  rebuked  he  may  say, 
"  It  is  a  great  pother  that  you  make  about  a  little  thing."  In  one  way 
it  amounts  to  a  little  ;  but  in  another  way  it  amounts  to  a  great  deal. 
Because,  when  you  have  begun  to  take  ofi"  the  enamel  from  the  back 
of  a  mirror,  every  particle  that  you  scrajDC  off,  every  scratch  that  you 
make,  mars  the  image  that  the  mirror  reflects.  And  every  time  you 
trifle  with  reverent  or  sacred  things,  it  is  as  though  you  scratched  a 
miiTor ;  and  afterward  every  image  that  you  see  when  you  look  at 
those  things  is  marred.  An  irreverent  jest  is  a  little  thing  ;  but  its  in- 
fluence on  the  moral  sense,  and  upon  veneration,  is  a  great  thing,  be- 
cause it  leads  to  another  thing  which  is  still  worse,  and  another  tbino- 
which  is  worse  than  that,  until  by  and  by  the  power  of  invisible  and 
venerable  things  on  the  soul  is  well-nigh  destroyed. 

It  is  a  very  little  thing  when  one  falls  into  the  habit  of  salacious 
wit  and  narrative.  A  man  may  scorn  the  imputation  of  impure 
morals,  although  his  tongue  is  not  clean,  and  call  it  an  external  fault ; 
and  yet,  when  men  are  forming  character,  and  indulging  themselves  in 
conversation  that  soils  delicacy  and  purity,  and  fills  the  mind  with 


156  IMPORTANCE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS. 

associations  that  had  better  have  been  left  out,  they  take  down  the 
barriers.  The  influences  of  sensitiveness  and  delicacy  are  a  barrier 
which  God  puts  between  good  and  bad,  to  keep  men  from  the  bad ; 
and  although  a  man  may  be  indelicate,  and  not  go  over,  yet  the 
barriers  are  taken  away,  and  it  will  be  easier  for  him  to  go  over.  And 
if  he  is  saved,  it  will  be  by  the  grace  of  God.  It  is  a  little  thing,  to  be 
sure  ;  but  it  is  one  of  those  little  things  that  have  a  long  end. 

It  is  a  small  matter  for  one  to  indulge  himself  in  petty  things; 
little  pleasures ;  little  self-indulgences,  each  one  of  which  is  infinitesi- 
mal, it  may  be  ;  but  the  habit  which  is  formed  in  that  respect  makes 
little  things,  no  one  of  which  seems  to  be  of  any  account,  to  be  of 
very  great  account. 

Now,  there  are  many  men  who  would  not  blaspheme — oh,  no !  but 
they  would  use  cowards'  oaths.  When  a  man  wants  to  say,  "  By 
Jehovah !"  he  says,  "  By  Jupiter !"  When  a  man  wants"  to  say, 
"  Damn  it !"  he  says,  "  Darn  it !"  When  a  man  wants  to  say,  "  I 
swear  !"  he  says,  "  I  swow  !"  When  a  man  wants  to  be  profane,  he 
does  not  dare  to  be  profane,  and  take  the  comfort  of  it,  and  so  he 
resorts  to  such  modified  expressions  as  these. 

Now,  to  rebuke  a  man  who  says,  "  By  George,"  and,  "  By  thunder," 
as  being  profane,  seems  to  be  unreasonable.  I  should  not  make  it  a 
capital  offence  ;  I  should  not  say  that  a  man  who  fell  into  these  ways 
of  speaking  was  unprincipled  ;  but  I  would  say  to  every  young  man 
and  maiden — for  I  think  that  sometimes  maidens  need  exhortation  on 
this  subject — that  these  little  speeches  lead  to  intemperate  speeches, 
which  by  and  by  lead  to  more  audacious  oaths.  I  would  say  that  they 
have  a  tendency  in  the  wrong  direction. 

"  Let  your  communication  be  yea,  yea,  or  nay,  nay  ;  for  whatsoever  is 
more  than  these  cometh  of  evil." 

So  said  the  Master;  and  I  think  he  knew. 

There  are  a  great  many  persons  who  are  thoroughly  of  the  opinion 
that  black  lies  are  wicked  ;  but  of  white  lies  they  have  a  better  opinion. 
Now,  what  is  a  white  lie  ?  Well,  you  cannot  give  any  definition  of  it 
except  that  it  is  a  small  lie  ?  What  is  a  small  lie  ?  Well,  it  is  an  un- 
truth in  some  trivial  matter.  And,  in  so  far  as  the  consequences  are 
concerned,  it  may  be  trivial ;  as,  for  instance,  where  you  deceive  a 
child,  and  he  forgets  it,  and  you  forget  it.  A  white  lie  is  a  deception, 
like  that  of  telling  a  person  that  you  have  not  been  where  you  have 
been,  when  he  has  no  business  to  know  anything  about  it. 

When  Walter  Scott  was  writing  one  of  his  novels,  and  he  did  not 
wish  it  known  that  he  was  the  author  of  it,  and  a  man  said  to  him, 
"Are  you  the  author  of  that  novel?"  he  said,  "No,  I  am  not."  And 
in  his  own  letters,  in  his  life,  he  makes  the  distinct  statement  that  he 
had  a  right  to  deny  what  other  people  had  no  business  to  know.    That 


IMPORTANCE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS.  157 

was  the  moral  ground  which  he  took.  Is  not  that  a  tenable  ground  ?  I 
do  not  ask  whether  persons'  weaknesses  may  not  sometimes  throw  them 
upon  such  a  ground.  I  do  not  ask  whether  you  would  not  do  the  same 
thing  under  the  same  circumstances.  I  take  the  ground  that  if  a  man 
indulges  in  a  falsehood  in  a  great  thing,  he  will  in  a  little  ;  and  that  if 
he  does  it  in  a  little  thing,  he  is  easily  led  to  do  it  in  a  great.  I  am 
not  asking  whether  men  would  not  do  so  and  so.  Very  likely  I  would. 
But  that  would  not  make  it  any  better.  The  question  is,  Is  it  right  ? 
Is  it  safe  ?  Is  it  honorable  °i  Is  it  consistent  with  the  Christian  idea 
of  character  ?  I  say  that  little  lies  are  not  as  dangerous  as  lions. 
Neither  are  little  vermin.  And  yet,  a  man  had  better  have  his  head 
clean  and  his  skin  clean. 

Men  think  frequently  that  little  thefts  constitute  a  subdivision  of 
guilt.  They  do  not  believe  in  allopathic  stealing;  but  they  do  in  homeo- 
i:)athic.  I  hold  to  the  homeopathic  theory,  which  teaches  that  the  power 
of  medicine  is  not  in  jDroportion  to  its  largeness  or  smallness — that 
there  is  just  as  much  power  in  one  of  these  pilules  as  there  is  in  the 
old  bolus.  And,  so  far  as  moral  quality  is  concerned,  a  man  that 
steals  a  pin,  steals.  It  may  not  hurt  the  merchant  so  much,  but  it 
hurts  you  just  as  much — more  sometimes,  because  it  is  more  insidious; 
because  it  does  not  affect  your  conscience  ;  because  it  leads  you  to  do 
other  things,  step  by  step,  obliterating  that  sensibility  which  is  a 
warning  and  a  guard.  Great  crimes,  begun  early,  would  shock  men 
and  hold  them  back ;  and  little  thefts  are  the  nits  which  hatch  out 
into  great  ones.  No  man  who  means  well  by  himself  should  ever  per- 
mit himself  to  color  the  truth,  or  to  tell  the  smallest  falsehood.  If  he 
does,  let  him  not  own  to  himself  that  he  has  not  sinned.  No  man  who 
means  well  by  himself  should  indulge  in  the  lightest-fingered  thieving 
— in  taking  the  smallest  particle  which  does  not  belong  to  him.  It  is 
better  to  be  honest  and  true  in  the  inward  man,  clear  down  to  the 
bottom  of  motive  and  interest.  Do  that,  and  you  are  safe.  But  if 
you  indulge  in  little  things  that  are  wrong,  you  do  not  know  where 
those  little  things  will  carry  you. 

So  I  might  go  on  to  prove  that  it  is  true  of  vices  generally,  that 
small  ones  become  largo  ones.  And  yet,  inducing  these  greater  dan- 
gers, they  soothe  a  man's  fear  ;  they  conciliate  his  conscience,  and  bribe 
it;  they  take  away  all  the  instincts  of  apprehension.  Men  grow  bad 
faster  Avhen  they  commit  a  shoal  and  multitude  of  little  sins,  of 
A'arious  kinds. 

Considered  in  the  light  of  moral  aggregation,  I  remark  again,  single 
actions  may  be  insignificant,  and  yet,  by  repetition  may  become 
well-nigh  omnipotent.  There  is  nothing,  I  su))pose,  that  is  more 
feeble  than  a  single  strand  of  a  spider's  web.    I  read  an  account,  only 


158  IMPORTANCE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS. 

a  few  days  ago,  of  a  man  who  saw  a  very  curious  spectacle — that  of  a 
black  snake  more  than  a  foot  long  suspended  in  the  ah-  in  a  perfect 
sack  of  spider's  web.  And  the  spider  was  not  a  large  one.  It  was 
one  of  these  small  spiders.  It  bore  no  proportion  to  its  victim.  Nor 
could  he  by  any  biting  hurt  him.  But  there  he  had  him  imprisoned. 
He  had  di'awn  him,  little  by  little,  into  the  air ;  and  the  snake  could 
not  help  himself.  Probably  the  serpent  was  torpid  ;  or  the  enemy  was 
so  small  that  he  did  not  know  that  he  was  upon  him.  And  the  spider 
spun  out  of  his  bowel  a  little  film,  not  a  third  part  as  large  as  the  smallest 
silk  thread  that  a  woman  uses  withal ;  and  he  dipped  down  and  touched 
the  snake  with  it,  and  it  stuck.  He  took  another  little  film,  and  touched 
him  with  that,  and  it  stuck.  He  weut  on  industriously ;  and  as  the 
snake  lay  quiet,  he  j)ut  another  and  another  film  upon  him.  And  as 
there  was  time  enough,  he  added  another  and  another,  till  there  were 
a  hundred,  a  thousand,  ten  thousand  of  them.  And  by  and  by  these 
little  weak  strands,  no  one  of  which  was  strong  enough  to  hold  a  gnat, 
when  multiplied  became  strong  enough  to  encase  the  victim.  A  mil- 
lion times  stronger  the  snake  was  than  that  miserable  little  spider,  and 
yet  the  spider  caught  him,  he  webbed  him  round  and  round,  until 
when  he  tried  to  move  he  was  held  fast.  That  web  had  grown  strong 
out  of  its  weakness.  By  putting  one  strand  here,  and  another  there, 
and  drawing  on  this,  that  and  the  other,  the  spider  at  last  lifted  the 
burden,  and  it  hung  suspended  in  the  air. 

I  have  seen  men  webbed  by  offences  in  that  same  way  ;  and  no  one 
of  the  offences  was  much  larger  than  the  film  of  a  spider's  web ;  and 
at  last  they  were  imprisoned  and  destroyed.  Where  men  are  coming 
to  any  great  crisis,  for  instance,  in  their  lives,  how  very  strong  little 
things  are ;  as,  sometimes,  when  they  are  balancing  in  their  minds 
whether  they  will  give  up  drinking  courses  or  not!  Men  have 
been  in  bad  company,  and  have  been  indulging  in  all  manner  of 
wickedness.  God  leads  them  through  some  dark  way  or  other,  and 
gives  them  a  shock  ;  or,  through  some  gradual  work  on  the  soul,  he 
leads  them  more  and  more  to  sobriety  and  though tfuln ess;  and  they 
are  coming  to  that  point  in  which  they  are  to  decide  whether  they 
shall  or  shall  not  change  their  lives. 

Three  men  sent  for  Mr.  Morton,  the  missionary  of  the  Bethel,  to 
go  and  see  them  ;  and  he  appointed  a  time  for  meeting  them ;  and 
when  he  met  them,  they  said  to  him,  "  We  have  been  drinking  men ; 
and  we  have  all  of  us  been  in  your  class  ;  and  we  have  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  we  have  been  drinking  too  much.  We  have  been 
leaving  ofl'  little  by  little ;  and  now  we  have  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  is  best  for  us  to  leave  off  entirely.  And  we  have  asked  you 
to  come  in  and  have  us  sign  the  pledge,  and  shake  hands  with  us." 


IMPORTANCE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS.  159 

So  the  pledge  was  signed,  and  they  shook  hands  all  round.  And  then 
they  said,  after  a  moment's  hesitation,  "  We  feel  as  though  this  was 
not  enough.  We  feel  as  though  if  there  is  anything  in  religion,  it  was 
time  that  we  had  it.  And  we  have  asked  you  to  come  that  you  might 
tell  us  how  to  get  it." 

Now,  there  was  a  time  in  those  men's  lives  when  they  did  not 
break  out  in  that  full-blossomed  way.  There  was  a  time  of  struggle, 
of  hesitation,  in  which  the  motives  on  the  one  side  and  the  other  were 
almost  balanced.  There  was  a  time,  probably,  at  which,  if  some  old 
boon  companion,  some  big-hearted  man,  whose  blood  ran  through 
him  like  a  gulf-stream,  and  generated  a  great  deal  of  magnetism,  and 
carried  folks  away  with  him,  had  met  these  men,  they  would  have 
been  swept  from  their  moorings,  and  would  have  fallen  back  upon 
their  old  ways,  and  there  would  have  been  no  pledge,  and  no  religion, 
and  no  salvation  in  the  heavenly  land,  for  them.  There  was  a  time 
when,  coming  to  New  York,  a  slight  thing  might  have  determined 
your  everlasting  destiny.  For,  when  things  are  nearly  balanced,  it 
takes  but  little  to  turn  them. 

Here,  in  one  scale,  is  half  a  ton.  The  weigher  goes  to  work  and 
throws  into  the  other  scale  a  hundred  pounds,  and  another  hundred 
pounds,  and  another  hundred,  till  there  are  five,  six,  seven,  eight,  nine 
hundi-ed  pounds  there  ;  and  then  he  throws  in  fifty  pounds  more,  and 
twenty-five  more,  and  twenty  more,  and  one  more,  and  three  more,  and 
half  a  pound  more,  and  a  quarter  of  a  pound  more,  and  a  quarter  more. 
And  then  up  goes  the  other  scale ;  and  they  are  just  at  equipoise.  Now, 
throw  one  ounce  into  one  scale,  and  down  it  will  go.  In  the  begin- 
ning five  hundred  pounds  did  not  start  it ;  but  when  a  scale  is  at  equi- 
poise one  ounce  will  make  it  kick. 

So  it  is  when  men  are  brought  to  the  decision  to  go  forward  in  a 
right  way  ;  to  forsake  a  bad  course ;  to  lift  themselves  up  to  a  higher 
sphere  of  life  ;  to  live  for  spiritual  good  and  not  for  fleshly  good ;  to 
live  for  the  life  that  is  to  come,  as  well  as  for  the  life  that  now  is.  In 
these  fearful  moments  of  decision,  the  drinking  of  a  cup  of  liquor, 
which  at  another  time,  though  not  prudent,  might  not  have  proved 
disastrous,  will  sweep  away  that  sensibility  which  is  the  last  ground 
of  hope  that  remains,  and  destroy  the  soul.  It  is  a  perilous  thing,  in 
Buch  an  hour  as  that,  for  a  man  to  throw  himself  where  pleasures 
may  entice,  where  indulgences  may  solicit,  where  anything  may  come 
in  to  unsettle  his  purpose.  It  takes  very  little  to  carry  down  the  scale 
when  it  stands  at  equipoise.    Very  often  the  least  thing  will  do  it. 

I  say  this,  because  I  have  been  for  so  long  a  time  dealing  witli  men 
that  I  know  what  their  feelings  are,  and  I  know  that  such  warning  is 
often  needed  when  men  are  serious-minded  ;  when  they  are  very  near 


160  IMFOBTANGE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS. 

to  the  kingdom  of  God — as  near  as  some  of  you  are  to-night — so  near 
that  it  would  take  the  merest  pressure  of  the  hand  to  bear  them  over 
the  line,  and  within  the  sacred  precinct.  Men  ridicule  us,  sometimes, 
who  do  not  well  consider  what  they  say,  and  who  do  not  understand 
the  nature  of  moral  qualities,  when  we  say  to  a  man,  "Withhold  your- 
self even  from  lawful  pleasures;  do  not  go  into  company  which  at  other 
times  you  might  properly  keep  ;  God's  Spirit  strives  with  you  ;  your 
heart  is  brought  into  such  a  temper,  and  under  such  influences,  that 
that  which  would  be  perfectly  allowable  at  another  time  is  not  wise  at 
this  crisis."  As,  when  a  person  is  sick,  diet  which  in  health  is  perfectly 
right  is  bad  for  him  ;  so,  when  a  man  is  coming  back  to  himself  and  to 
his  Saviour,  there  are  many  things  which  he  ought  not  to  do,  because 
in  such  critical  hours  and  moments  little  things  go  so  lar. 

When  guides  are  taking  men  along  Alpine  stretches,  in  the  fore- 
noon, when  the  sun  has  begun  to  shine,  and  the  vast  avalanches  lie 
above,  they  will  not  let  them  speak,  and  say  to  them,  as  they  begin  to 
make  the  turn,  "  While  going  round  this  ravine  on  the  narrow  path 
let  no  man  say  a  word."  And  so  they  go  in  silence,  one  after  another. 
Why  %  Because  so  exactly  balanced,  sometimes,  is  the  avalanche,  that 
the  echo,  and  the  vibration  of  the  ak  which  is  produced,  will  be  just 
what  is  necessary  to  break  the  last  icicle  that  holds  it ;  and  down 
will  come  the  avalanche.  At  other  points  in  the  passage  they  may 
shout  as  loud  as  they  please,  and  it  will  do  no  harm ;  but  there  are  crit- 
ical points  where  the  guide  says,  "  Hush,  and  do  not  even  whisper." 
It  is  a  very  little  thing ;  but  oh  !  does  it  not  take  hold  of  tremendous 
consequences  % 

A  companion  that  is  good  for  houi's  of  health,  may  be  a  bad  com- 
panion for  hours  of  sickness.  A  companion  that  is  good  for  ordinary 
times,  may,  at  certain  critical  times  of  a  man's  moral  history,  be  ruinous, 
not  intending  it.  Thousands  of  men  have  been  destroyed  in  this 
world,  I  doubt  not,  who  never  knew,  nor  suspected  even,  that  it  was 
the  smallest  circumstance  that  determined  their  destruction.  As  trains 
are  destroyed  by  the  movement  of  a  switch  no  more  than  the  tenth 
part  of  an  inch,  so  little  things  often  determine,  at  critical  periods,  men's 
fate  for  time  and  for  eternity. 

Are  there  not  persons  here,  to-night,  who  are  about  to  plunge  to-mor- 
row into  the  world  again  ?  Are  there  not  persons  here  whose  hearts  have 
been  brought  to  some  degree  of  glow,  and  who  have  iu  them  yearnings 
and  aspirations  ?  It  may  be  that  some  great  trouble  has  brought  you 
to  this.  It  may  be  that  some  revelation  of  God's  truth  has  been  made 
known  to  you.  If  you  nourish  it,  if  you  shield  it,  it  will  be  kindled 
into  a  blaze  of  grace  that  shall  one  day  mingle  with  the  celestial  fire. 
If  you  neglect  it,  if  you  suffer  the  rude  wind  to  blow  upon  it,  it  may 


IMF OBTANCE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS.  161 

be  extinguished,   and  the  light  may  never  again  be  kindled  in  your 
heart  and  conscience. 

A  baud  of  hunters,  going  out,  toil  all  day  Avith  little  success,  and 
are,  by  the  rain  and  sleet  which  pelts  upon  them,  driven  into  the  woods, 
where  they  are  overtaken  by  the  night,  and  are  lost.  They  cannot  ex- 
tricate themselves,  and  they  Avill  perish  if  they  cannot  kindle  a  fire- 
They  search,  and  there  is  but  a  single  match  left.  Theii*  whole 
safety  depends  upon  that.  If  they  can  strike  that,  and  thereby  ignite 
sticks  of  wood,  they  will  survive ;  but  if  not,  they  may  die  before  morn- 
ing. They  hold  counsel.  They  seek  the  shady  side  of  a  tree.  They 
hunt  for  dry  bits  of  moss.  They  get  slivers  of  the  dry  est  wood.  They 
gather  together  the  best  material  within  their  reach,  and  put  it  v*^here 
neither  the  wind  nor  the  rain  can  find  it.  The  match  must  not  be  lost, 
and  one  of  them  slips  his  boot  off  from  his  foot.  The  wind  is  up,  and 
sweeps  past  them ;  and  no  hat,  nor  sheltering  tree  can  protect  that 
match.  So,  far  down  in  the  cavern  of  the  boot  he  scrapes  it  on  the 
sotlC  And,  blessed  be  God !  it  takes  fire.  They  cannot  bring  it  out. 
It  is  a  very  little  thing.  But  oh  !  it  is  life  or  death  to  these  men.  If 
it  goes  ou.t  they  are  gone  ;  and  if  it  is  kept  they  are  saved.  Foi-tun- 
ately  the  moss  catches,  and  the  Wood  begins  to  burn — first  one  little 
bit,  and  then  another  little  bit,  and  then  another,  until  by  and  by  the 
blazing  moss  may  be  brought  out.  And  then  the  wind  rather  helps 
it,  if  it  is  not  too  strong.  And  at  last  the  large  pieces  of  wood 
are  kindled,  and  there  is  a  glorious  fire,  and  the  wind  that  now  is  j^er- 
mitted  to  blow  full  upon  it  is  God's  bellows  to  bring  up  the  life-giving 
element.  And  the  large  mass  crackles  and  blazes.  And  they  are  safe. 
They  can  now  put  on  what  they  have  a  mind  to,  and  the  wind  may 
blow  as  hard  as  it  pleases,  but  they  are  safe.  There  was,  however,  a 
point  where  they  were  in  jeopardy. 

There  is  many  and  many  a  man  who  may  by  and  by  be  perfectly 
hardy  in  exposm-e,  and  in  the  indulgence  of  lawful  things ;  but  there 
are  critical  times  in  these  men's  histories — in  tlieir  household  histories  ; 
in  their  business  histories  ;  in  their  conscience  life  and  then-  spiritual 
life.  There  are  times  when  the  flickering  flame  of  their  hope  is  liable 
to  be  extinguished.  And  that  is  the  meaning  of  the  word  of  God 
when  it  is  said  that  Christ  is  one  who  will  not  break  the  bruised  reed, 
or  quench  the  smoking  flax,  until  he  shall  bring  forth  judgment  unto 
victory.  He  will  not  put  out  the  spark  that  is  kindling  the  wick  of 
hope  in  any  soul,  until  he  consummates  the  '(fork  of  grace  in  that  soul. 
Finally — not  to  draw  these  illustratioiis  out  unduly,  and  weary 
you — am  I  extravagant  when  I  warn  you,  young  men,  and  men  of  life 
and  business  ?  Do  I  overdraw  the  picture,  or  exaggerate  it,  when  I 
bid  you  bevrare  of  little  sins  of  every  kind  ?   A  serpent's  tooth  is  small. 


162  IMPOBTANCB  OF  LITTLE  THINGS. 

and  a  scorpion's  sting  is  small ;  but  they  cany  death.  And  little  sins 
are  small ;  but  many  and  many  a  man  has  lain  down  in  final  anguish 
because  they  stung  him  to  death.  Beware  of  all  sins.  Beware  of  little 
sins  especially. 

And  do  I  exaggerate  when  I  tell  you  that  in  the  critical  passages  of 
your  life  you  cannot  afibrd  to  do  things  which  you  would  fain  do  ?  O 
serious-minded  man !  O  woman,  on  whose  heart  God  has  laid  afliiction, 
and  whom  he  has  called  to  fulfill  long-delayed  vows !  O  father  of  a  fam- 
ily, that  has  no  exemplar,  on  whose  judgment  and  on  whose  conscience 
has  rested  for  a  long  time  the  unfulfilled  duties  of  religious  life !  have  you 
not  been  brought  again  and  again  to  the  point,  almost,  of  decision,  and 
fallen  away  from  it,  until  it  has  become  harder  and  harder  every  year  for 
you  to  get  your  own  attention,  or  bring  yourself  to  the  point  of  a  reso- 
lution ?  Neither  can  you  describe  nor  tell  me  what  it  was  that  balked 
the  decision.  You  cannot  tell  why  it  was,  when  you  came  so  near  to 
the  kingdom  of  God,  that  you  did  not  enter  in.  It  was  because  of  some 
little  thing,  so  inconspicuous  that  you  did  not  yourself  recognize  what  it 
was,  and  yet  mighty  enough  to  destroy  your  moral  purpose,  mighty 
enough  to  carry  you  thus  far  down  the  way  of  life  again,  in  old  habits, 
old  selfishness,  old  pride,  old  worldliness,  disobeying  God,  forfeiting  your 
own  hope,  and  preparing  the  way  for  your  own  destruction.  And  now 
the  time  comes  round  again.  I  know  that  there  are  children  of  Chris- 
tian parents  here  who  never  can  hear  the  truth  preached  faithfully,  that 
their  hearts  do  not  sound  out  like  the  soldier's  drum.  The  "  long  roll" 
they  hear  ;  and  their  fears  start  up  on  every  side.  There  are  such  men 
here  to-night.  There  are  men  here  who  have  scarcely  eased  themselves 
of  the  burden  of  an  old  sorrow.  There  are  men  here  to  whom  I  can  say, 
very  truthfully,  "  You  are  not  fiir  from  the  kingdom  "of  God.  You  are 
convinced  in  your  judgment  and  in  your  consciences  ;  and  your  hearts 
are  touched  ;  and  you  are  very  near  to  the  point  of  deciding.  A  little 
thing  will  do  it.  There  are  some  men  here  who,  I  think,  if  they  would, 
when  they  go  home  to-night,  gather  their  wife  and  children  about  them 
and  say  to  them,  "  Help  me ;  for  from  this  time  forth  I  am  going  to 
try  to  live  a  Christian  life,"  would  find  that  it  would  strike  the  balance 
the  right  way  ;  and  they  would  be  saved.  But  if  they  neglect  it,  the 
balance  will  go  the  other  way,  and  they  will  be  destroyed.  I  believe 
there  are  men  here  who,  if  they  would  make  one  vehement  efibrt 
to  break  up  a  bad  habit,  would  thus  take  the  first  of  a  series  of  steps 
which  would  bring  them  into  a  spiritual  change. 

I  do  not  say  that  a  man  who  uses  tobacco  is  a  great  sinner.  I  would 
not  take  extravagant  ground  on  that  subject.  But  I  would  take  the 
ground  that  this  is  one  of  the  bad  habits  that  it  is  hard  to  break  oflf 
from  ;  and  therefore  I  say  that  a  man  who  would  make  up  his  mind  to 


IMPOBTANCE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS.  163 

cast  that  out,  would  find  that  this  strain  of  his  nerve  for  the  sake  of  a 
moral  result,  though  it  was  a  little  thing,  would  be  a  very  decisive 
thing.  I  have  known  many  a  man  M'ho  had  taken  a  single  step  in 
reform,  and  who,  if  he  had  had  the  strength  of  purpose  to  take  another 
step  would  have  been  carried  along  and  saved,  but  who,  for  the  want 
of  that  strength  of  ])urpose,  was  destroyed.  If  men  are  wise,  when 
they  have  taken  the  first  step  in  the  right  direction  they  will  not  stop 
till  they  have  taken  the  second,  and  many  more. 

I  believe  there  are  men  here  to-night  who,  if  they  would  say  to 
their  companions,  "  Give  me  your  hand ;  I  will  not  drink  anotlier  drop 
again,"  would  be  saved  from  the  drunkard's  grave.  You  are  going  to 
destruction  along  the  way  of  intemperance.  You  knoAV  it,  though  you 
deny  it.  And  your  friends  know  it,  though  they  do  not  tell  you  so ; 
r4,nd  if  you  would  say  to  those  who  know  you,  "  Before  God  I  declare 
that  from  tliis  time  I  will  be  clean  in  this  matter,"  it  would  be  the 
means  of  your  salvation.  That  small  thing  is  not  religion ;  but  it  is 
the  first  step  toward  it ;  and  you  will  take  another,  and  another,  and 
another,  until  Uicy  bring  you  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 

There  are  men  here  who  have  not  bent  the  knee  in  prayer  for  years 
and  years,  and  who,  if  tliey  would  go  home  and  bend  the  knee  before 
they  sleep,  and  pray  to  God  for  help,  would  be  taking  a  decisive  step 
in  the  right  direction  in  their  history.  Why  ?  Because  praying  saves 
a  man  ?  Oh  no.  It  is  not  because  there  is  a  charm  in  that  thing.  It 
is  a  little  thing,  to  be  sure ;  but  it  is  one  of  those  small  acts  which  are 
likely  to  carry  you  forward  to  the  next  step,  and  the  next,  in  the  work 
of  your  salvation. 

There  are  many  men  in  my  hearing  to-night  who  are  so  near  to  a 
right  life,  who  are  so  convinced  that  they  have  been  going  wrong,  who 
are  so  desirous  of  mending  their  lives,  and  whose  sympathies,  and  com- 
panionships, and  hopes,  and  better  judgment,  and  aspirations  so  set  in 
that  way,  that  if  they  would  take  the  least  step  seriously  with  the  pur- 
pose of  making  it  the  first  step  of  a  series,  it  would  be  to  them  a  part- 
ing from  sin  and  the  kingdom  of  darkness,  and  an  approaching  to 
righteousness  and  the  kingdom  of  light  and  glory. 

Now,  I  beseech  you,  look  uj^on  this  thing  to-night.  I  speak  to 
you  as  to  my  brethren.  Heed  what  I  say,  not  from  my  profession, 
but  from  my  personal  sympathy  with  you,  a  citizen  among  citizens, 
having  no  right  to  give  you  advice  except  that  right  which  comes  from 
love.  Your  salvation  is  your  concei'n  personally.  Ponder  what  I 
have  said.  Consider  whether  it  is  not  good  sense,  and  whether  it  has 
not  experience  under  it.     Take  heed  to  it. 

Ai-e  there  not  some  here  who  will  go  to  their  rooms  to-night  better 
and  soberer  ?     Young  men,  wake  up.     Break  off  from  your  sin  ?     It 


164  IMFOETANCB  OF  LITTLE  THINGS, 

is  but  a  moment's  pleasure,  and  it  is  endless  damnation  !  O  maiden 
called  of  God  !  let  not  that  spark  which  has  been  kindled  be  put  out 
by  the  unruly  wind  or  the  scowling  storm.  Listen  to  your  mother's 
God  that  calls  you.  O  father!  O  mother!  let  your  children  have 
some  one  to  guide  them  through  the  dark  way  in  this  world.  O 
friends  and  neighbors  !  take  hold  of  hands,  and  part  from  Satan,  and 
from  all  his  wiles.  And  lift  up  your  eyes.  Your  salvatiou  draweth 
iiigh.  It  lingereth  not.  It  shall  come.  And  God  shall  save  you  with 
an  everlasting  salvation. 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

Vouclisafe  to  us,  our  Heavenly  Father,  the  Divine  illumination.  Grant  to 
us  more  li"-ht.  Grant  us  thine  influence.  Breathe  upon  us,  that  we  may  have 
power  bo'th  to  conceive  all  things  that  are  right  and  noble,  and  to  do  the 
same.  For  in  thee  we  hve  and  move  and  have  our  being.  Though  we  cannot 
discern  thee ;  though  we  may  not  have  such  commerce  with  thee  as  we  have 
Avith  one  another ;  though  thou  art  a  Spirit,  and  we  are  in  the  body ;  though 
we  cannot  with  these  dull  instruments  of  the  flesh  discern  spiritual  things 
knowingly ;  yet  thou  art,  and  thou  makest  thy  presence  felt,  and  thou  dost 
fill  the  hearts  of  those  that  believe  on  and  trust  thee  with  great  joy.  And 
in  the  communications  of  thy  grace  there  are  hours  of  blessed  certainty  and 
hours  of  revelation.  Thou  dost  lift  up  thy  people  upon  the  mountain-top. 
Then  thou  art  changed,  and  beeomest  radiant ;  and  against  the  sky  thou  art 
brighter  than  any  star  that  is  in  it. 

O  Lord !  we  thank  thee  for  even  these  hours  of  transfiguration ;  and  if 
in  them  we  forget  the  duties  of  life,  and  fain  would  make  tabernacles  to  abide 
in  sweet  experiences,  below  us  are  all  the  miseries  of  mankind,  and  we  come 
down  again,  better,  stronger,  truer,  more  faithful,  and  pursue  afterward,  in 
the  lower  ways  of  life,  our  duties  with  more  alacrity,  for  the  high  and  blessed 
privileges  which  we  have  enjoyed. 

Grant  unto  every  one  of  thy  children,  as  thou  seest  that  they  need,  these 
intimations  and  revelations  of  thyself.  If  there  be  those  who  donotlmow 
how  to  trust  thee,  if  there  be  those  whose  faith  is  very  weak,  if  there  be  those 
that  believe,  and  yet  cry  out,  "  Help  my  unbelief,"  Lord  be  very  gracious  unto 
such.  And  if  they^cannot  walk  alone,  bear  them  in  thine  arms,  thou  Shepherd 
that  dost  carry  the  lambs.  According  to  their  weakness  and  their  want  let 
thy  mercies  abound  unto  them.  Be  gracious  to  all  who  would  draw  near 
thee  with  humble  confession.  We  know  their  weakness.  We  know  the 
streno-th  of  their  wickedness.  We  know  how  defective  they  are  in  things  that 
are  ri°  ht.  We  know  how  powerful  in  them  are  tendencies  to  evil.  O  Lord ! 
we  pray  that  thou  wilt  hear  the  cry  of  such  souls.  They  do  not  desire  captiv- 
ity. They  do  not  desire  to  be  led  astray  by  the  strength  of  their  passions. 
And  though  at  times  all  their  passions  are  as  the  mountains  full  of  the  Philis- 
tines, and  their  better  resolutions' are  as  thy  people  beaten  small  in  the  val- 
leys yet  they  cry  unto  thee,  and  thou  dost  overthrow  their  adversaries.  If 
to-n'i"-ht  they  ask  for  Divine  help  against  their  own  pride  and  worldliness, 
Lord°  turn  not  away  thine  ear  from  their  petition.  If  there  are  those  who 
wish  to  make  their  way  toward  virtue,  or  to  progress  in  anything  pertaining 
to  the  time  life  of  Christ,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  tliou  wilt  reveal  thyself  to 


IMPOBTANOE  OF  LITTLE  THINGS.  165 

them.  If  there  is  but  a  spark,  thou  art  lie  that  will  not  break  the  bruised 
reed  nor  quench  the  smoking  flax,  uutil  thou  dost  bring  forth  judgment  unto 
victory.  Be  with  those  that  need  thee  by  reason  of  the  greatness  of  their  sin 
and  their  wickedness.  And  Ave  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  draw  near  to 
all  those  that  are  cast  down  through  despondency  oi'  remorse ;  to  all  those 
that  wish  they  were  dead,  and  yet  dare  not  die ;  to  all  those  that  go  forth  into 
life  seemg  no  glory  in  it. 

How  many  there  are  who  have  been  swept  away  and  snared !  How  many 
there  are  who  find  their  way  in  life  so  steep  that  they  cannot  climb  it.  Oh 
Lord !  save  them  from  discouragement ;  and  gi-ant  that  they  may  not  slip 
backward  toward  perdition.  May  they  hear  the  voice  of  hope  crying 
unto  them — the  voice  of  God — saying,  "  Come  up  hither."  May  there  be  many 
to-night  that  shall  lift  their  weary  hands,  that  shall  gird  up  their  loins  and 
enter  upon  the  battle  of  life  contesting  evil,  running  from  the  mistakes  of 
their  past  life,  showing  their  sincerity  in  repentance  of  sin  by  a  better  walk, 
by  forsaking  that  which  is  wrong,  and  by  endeavoring  to  strengthen  others 
in  the  respects  in  which  thou  dost  strengthen  them.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt 
teach  us  to  be  more  gentle  and  merciful.  May  we  take  our  lessons,  not  from 
one  another,  but  from  Him  in  whom  alone  we  hope  for  redemption.  Grant 
that  the  sense  of  life's  shortness  may  throw  itself  upon  us,  not  to  daunt  us 
nor  discourage  us,  but  to  put  away  untimely  levity,  and  give  us  more  earn- 
estness, and  make  us  do  what  our  hands  find  to  do,  remembering  that  the 
night  Cometh  fast  in  which  we  can  do  no  more  work. 

Wilt  thou  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  all  that  are  in  thy  presence  as 
they  severally  need.  And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  gi-ant  thy  blessing  to  all 
thy  churches ;  to  thy  ministering  servants ;  to  all  that  preach  the  Gospel. 
Wilt  thou  comfort  and  strengthen  them,  and  grant  that  they  may  see  as  tho 
result  of  their  labor  a  great  harvest.  Fulfill  thy  promises  to  all  the  earth. 
Cause  wars  to  cease.  Cause  injustice  and  those  oppressions  which  breed  war 
to  cease.  May  ignorance  which  tempts  oppressors,  itself  be  enlightened.  May 
superstition,  and  all  the  mischiefs  of  depravity  cease  in  all  the  earth.  And 
may  that  blessed  day  of  prediction  come,  when  Christ  shall  reign  a  thousand 
years. 

And  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  everlasting. 
Amen, 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 


Our  Father,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  bless  the  word  of  truth 
which  we  have  spoken.  Grant  that  it  may  be  blessed  to  many  souls.  Awaken 
thoughtf  ulness ;  awaken  desire ;  awaken  conscience ;  awaken  fear.  May  all  our 
feelmgs  strive  withus.  Forhowgreat  is  the  darkness  around  us  !  How  greatis 
the  current,  and  how  strong  the  pressure  toward  things  selfish,  and  carnal,  and 
worldly !  Without  thy  spirit  we  can  do  nothing.  We  need  its  light ;  we  need 
its  warmth ;  we  need  its  encouragement.  We  need,  O  Lord  God  !  that  thou 
shouldst  work  in  us  to  will  and  to  doof  thine  own  good  pleasure.  Thou  art 
working.  Blessed  be  God,  thou  dost  not  measure  thy  mercies  by  our  desert. 
But  how  many  art  thou  calling  who  do  not  deseiwo  such  mercies  as  thou  art 
desirous  of  bestowing  upon  them  !  How  many  that  are  in  thy  presence  have 
thrown  away  thy  bounties  in  times  past,  and  sinned  against  ligiit  and  knowl- 
edge !  And  yet  thou  art  come  again.  Before  how  many  hearts  dost  thou 
stand  to-night,  knockiTig  ?  To  how  many  art  thou  saying.  Open,  and  let  me 
come  in.    My  locks  ai"c  wet  with  the  dews  of  the  night.    O  God  of  pious 


166  IMP OBTANCE  OF  LITTLE  THING 8. 

mothers  and  sainted  fathers !  look  upon  the  children  that  are  left  behind 
them,  and  have  mercy  upon  them.  O  Lord  God  !  join  again  in  more  blessed 
wedlock  those  who  stand  severed,  loving  each  other  with  earthly  love,  but 
having  no  common  hope  in  heaven  above.  O  Lord  God !  look  upon  the 
young,  and  see  how  they  are  spoiled,  how  they  are  as  sheep  for  the  sham- 
bles, in  this  devouring  city.  Oh !  have  mercy  upon  them.  And  grant  that 
to-night,  by  thy  grace,  many  of  them  may  be  called,  and  that  they  may  heed 
the  call  of  God,  and  come  to  newness  of  life.  Let  thy  work  be  revived.  Pour 
out  thy  Spirit  mightily  in  the  hearts  of  thy  people.  And  in  all  thy  churches 
may  we  hear  of  multitudes  awakened,  and  multitudes  converted. 

And  to  the  Father,  the  Son  and  Holy  Spirit,  shall  be  iti.'aises  evermore. 
Ame,n, 


X. 

The  Training  of  Children. 


INVOCATION. 

Thou  that  hast  opened  the  morning,  and  dost  pour  forth  from  thy  tem- 
ple the  golden  light,  art  thou  not  richer  in  heart  than  in  hand  ?  And  is  not 
thy  countenance  more  blessed  than  the  light  of  this  outward  sun,  which 
thou  hast  commanded  to  shine  ?  How  sweet  is  the  face  of  those  that  love  us, 
illuminated  toward  us !  And  how  glorious  is  that  face  when  it  shines  out 
toward  us  in  love !  Grant  that  we  may  behold  thee,  this  morning  ineffable 
in  glory,  but  to  us  the  God  of  love,  of  pity,  of  compassion  and  of  helpfulness ; 
for  we  need  the  light,  and  we  need  the  inspiration  of  thy  soul,  and  we  need 
thy  pity,  and  thy  forsiving  love.  Grant  them  unto  us,  we  beseech  of  thee, 
through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.    Amen. 

10 


THE  TRAINING  OF  CHILDREN. 


"  And  ye,  fathers,  provoke  not  your  children  to  wrath ;  but  bring  them 
up  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord." — Eph.  VL,  4. 


The  Sunday  for  the  baptism  of  children  is  a  fit  occasion  for  the 
histraction  of  parents  who  ai'e  bringing  up  children.  It  is  true  that 
no  one  can  give  such  directions  as  shall  insure  success  in  the  rearing 
of  our  children,  or  in  relieving  the  parent  from  finding  out  his  own 
way.  When  the  most  has  been  said,  and  the  best  modes  have  been 
given,  each  parent  must,  after  all,  make  his  own  experience.  There  is 
much  that  must  be  left  to  discretion ;  mudi  that  will  scarcely  be  the 
same  to  any  two  ;  but  some  general  considerations  may  greatly  help 
and  comfort  parents  in  their  work.  Some  principles  may  be  laid  down 
which,  being  observed,  will  help,  not  only  in  the  government  of  chil- 
dren, but  in  governing  ourselves,  and  in  governing,  or  rather,  in  inan- 
aging,  as  the  phrase  is,  those  with  whom  we  are  obliged  to  transact 
the  affairs  of  life. 

That  is  a  joyful  hour  in  a  household  when  a  child  is  born  to  the 
young  parents.  They  must  be  very  worldly,  and  devoid  of  sensibil- 
ity, who  do  not  feel  some  awe  over  the  new  cradle.  The  mysteiy  of 
human  life  comes  very  near,  and  never  seems  more  wonderful  than  at 
the  beginning  of  life.  Perhaps  not  the  little  coffin  itself  is  more 
affecting  to  one  of  deep  and  inward  thought  than  is  the  cradle.  While 
the  child  is  yet  a  babe,  the  parents  may  have  more  care,  but  not  so 
much  anxiety,  as  when  it  is  growing  up,  and  begins  to  need  training. 
At  that  time  not  a  few,  conscientious  and  earnest,  feel  themselves 
utterly  helpless.  And  if  they  be  cast  far  away  from  their  parents,  as 
often  in  this  changing  land  they  are,  they  reach  out  feeble  hands  of 
imploration,  and  long  for  some  one  to  give  them  the  clue,  or  lay  down 
for  them  some  principle,  which  embracing,  they  may  apply  from  time 
to  time  in  the  rearing  of  their  households. 

I  leave  to  physicians  the  questions  of  physical  culture  ;  not  because 
they  are  unimportant  in  a  moral  point  of  view,  but  because  only  a  sec- 
tion of  this  great  subject  can  be  discussed  in  any  one  discourse. 

Su^TJAT  MoRxixG,  Nov.  13, 18T0.  Lesson  :  Matthew  XVllI.,  1-10.   Hymns  (Plymouth  Col- 
leccion) :  Nob.  2SG,  925,  92V.  * 


16(5  THE  TRAININQ  OF  CEILDREN. 

1.  It  is  the  more  needful  to  give  instruction,  because  the  theory 
ai7.cl  the  practice  of  family  government  have  very  much  changed  within 
a  generation.  The  old  English  rigor  of  parental  authority — that  al- 
most despotic  government  which  parents  still  exercise  in  Germany — has 
not  been  known  among  us,  even  from  an  early  day.  I  think  the  fam- 
ily opened  toward  liberty  more  in  America  than  in  the  old  land,  where 
the  Roman  spirit  and  tradition  prevailed.  But  even  the  strictness  of 
New  England  has  been  greatly  relaxed — and  I  think  not  to  the  dam- 
age of  the  household.  It  may  be  that  the  government  which  prevails 
in  one  period  of  time  has  such  relations  to  public  sentiment,  and  to 
manners  and  to  customs,  that  it  is  better  for  that  period  than  any  later 
government  would  be  ;  but  I  think  that  the  milder  type  of  family 
government  which  is  prevailing  now  is  certainly  better  for  us  than 
that  more  rigorous  type  which  prevailed  in  New  England.  The  prev- 
alent sense  of  personal  liberty,  which  has  increased  in  the  community 
at  large,  has  penetrated  the  family  and  ameliorated  its  government. 
Children  are  freer.  They  earlier  assume  their  own  rights.  They  are 
not  less  loving,  but  they  are  certainly  less  reverential.  Reverence,  I 
may  remark,  has  found  a  very  poor  soil  and  climate  in  America.  It 
grows  most  scrubby.  Children  are,  I  think,  taking  the  whole  commu- 
nity together,  better  reared  than  they  used  to  be.  It  will  not  do  to 
select  single  instances  in  making  a  judgment  of  what  is  wisest  and 
best.  We  must  average  the  community.  And  if  you  take  high  and 
low,  I  think  there  is  a  greater  number  of  families  advanced  higher  in 
the  care  and  development  and  training  of  their  children,  than  at  any 
former  period,  although  the  methods  are  very  different.  The  schools, 
the  social  customs,  the  political  ideas,  the  public  sentiment  at  lai'ge, 
above  all,  the  religious  temper  and  genius  of  any  age,  will  largely 
influence  the  family  life.  But  the  whole  routine  being  broken  up, 
many  are  perplexed  as  to  what  is  the  wisest  coui-se  to  take.  There  is 
so  much  written,  there  are  so  many  new-fangled  social  theories,  that  a 
good  many  persons  are  sorely  disturbed.     And  I  hope  to  help  such. 

2.  The  question  is,  To  whom  do  the  children  belong  that  come 
into  our  households?  In  ancient  days  there  would  have  been  no  hes- 
itation on  this  point.  They  belonged  to  the  parents.  This  was  the 
case  in  the  early  periods  of  the  Hebrew  history.  Now^here,  however, 
was  it  the  case  so  emphatically,  and  in  such  a  heathenish  form,  as  in 
Rome,  where  the  father  owned,  not  simply  his  wife,  but  his  children, 
in  precisely  the  same  sense  that  merchandise  is  owned;  where  he  had 
not  only  the  power  of  absolute  government,  but  the  power  of  life  and 
(Jeath — limited,  to  be  sure,  in  later  days,  in' the  Roman  economy,  but 
lying  at  the  root  of  it  nevertheless.  And  in  Rome,  the  patria  potes- 
tas,  as  it  was  called  technically — the  father's  authority — did  not  termi- 


THE  TRAINING  OF  CHILDREN.  169 

nate,  as  with  us,  at  the  age  of  twenty-one.  It  remained  as  long  as  he 
lived,  and  no  son  could  be  set  free  from  the  absolute  authority  of  the 
father,  who  owned  him  and  his — all  that  was  his — his  wife,  his  chil- 
dren, and  his  property.  No  child  was  owned  by  himself  He  was 
owned  by  his  father,  as  the  father  was  owned  by  the  grandfather — if 
he  still  lived.  And  there  was  no  way  for  a  young  man  to  get  rid  of 
the  patria  potestas,  except  by  a  legal  enactment — for  a  law  was 
finally  enacted  that  while  a  father  might  sell  his  son,  he  could  never 
sell  him  more  than  three  times  ;  or  that  if  he  did,  the  son  should  go 
free.  And  so,  when  the  son  came  to  be  of  age,  the  form  of  sale  ^vas 
gone  through  with  three  times  by  agreement  between  the  father  and 
the  son  ;  and  after  that  the  son  owned  himself.  But  without  that 
transaction,  the  father  owned  the  son.  And  I  think  that  if  this  old 
Roman  notion  of  ownership  in  man  were  traced  out  through  the 
church,  and  the  civil  government,  and  through  our  ethical  ideas,  it 
would  be  found  to  be  at  the  root  of  much  of  the  reasoning  in  theol- 
ogy, and  much  of  the  reasoning  also  in  civil  economies.  It  was  arbi- 
trary and  barbarous,  first,  middle,  and  last. 

The  traces  of  it  are  found,  also,  though  in  a  milder  form  than 
among  the  Hebrews,  in  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament — not  in 
approbation,  but  simply  as  a  testimony  of  fact  ;  where,  for  instance,  in 
the  fourth  chapter  of  Galatians,  the  Apostle  Paul  says : 

"  Now  I  say  that  the  heir,  as  long  as  he  is  a  child,  differeth  nothing  from 
a  slave,  though  he  he  lord  of  all ;  but  is  under  tutors  and  governors  until  the 
time  appointed  of  the  father." 

/Servant  is  the  translation  here.  This  never  could  be  said  in  our 
day.  We  have  to  modify  it,  to  make  it  seem  true  to  us.  It  was  true 
to  ancient  custom.  Absolute  ownership  was  the  old  notion  ;  and  it  is 
not  rubbed  out  yet.  For  you  will  find  the  mediaeval  spirit  in  Europe 
to  this  day.  And  although  there  is  not  yet  such  a  property  sense 
of  ownership  as  there  once  was,  the  right  of  the  father  to  his  children  is 
almost  as  rigorous  in  many  parts  of  Continental  Europe  and  in  many 
parts  of  England,  and  in  some  families  in  America,  as  if  they  were  ab- 
solutely their  slaves. 

The  great  contrast  began  to  appear  in  the  Apostle's  writino-s  ;  and 
you  find  traces  of  it  in  the  context  of  the  passage  which  I  have  se- 
lected.    I  will  read  a  verse  or  two  of  the  sixth  of  the  Ephesians : 

"  Children,  obey  your  parents." 

Is  that  it  ?     No  !  no ! 

"  Children  obe/  your  parents  in  the  Lord.^* 

There  is  a  greater  ownersliip  than  that  of  your  parents.  Within 
that  divine  circle  obey  them ;  but  there  is  limitation.  There  is  the 
death-blow  to  the  old  Roman  patria  potestas. 

*'  Honor  thy  father  and  mother  (which  is  the  first  commandment  with 


170  THE  TRAINING  OF  CHILDREN. 

promise)  tliatit  maybe  well  -with  thee,  and  thou  mayst  livelong  on  the  earth. 
And  ye  fathers  [here  comes  in  the  right  of  the  children]  provoke  not  your 
children  to  wrath." 

You  do  not  own  them.  You  have  no  right  to  do  just  what  you 
please  with  them.  You  are  not  to  goad  and  irritate  them.  Your  gov- 
ernment over  them  is  not  arbitrary  ;  and  you  have  no  right  to  assume 
absolute  authority  over  them. 

"  Bring  them  up  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord." 

In  the  next  two  verses  Christ's  name  is  interposed  in  the  relation  of 
master  and  servant. 

"  Servants,  he  obedient  to  them  that  are  your  masters  according  totha 
flesh-," 
— not  according  to  the  eternal  principles  of  rectitude,  but,  as  it  were, 

by  an  accident  of  the  flesh. 

•'  Be  obedient  to  them  that  are  your  masters  according  to  the  flesh,  with 
fear  and  trembling,  in  singleness  of  your  heart  as  unto  Christ." 

Why,  what  an  amazing  implication  this  is  !  If  you  can  not  find  a 
motive  in  your  relation  to  a  man  v>4io  says  he  owns  you,  from  which  to 
obey  him,  then  understand  that  you  are  obeying  Christ  Jesus,  who 
stands  behind  him.  Do  it  for  Christ's  sake  if  you  can  not  find  any 
reason  to  do  it  for  the  man's  sake. 

"  Not  with  eye-service,  as  men  pleasers,  but  as  the  servants  of  Christ  doing 
the  will  of  God  from  the  heart." 

Thus  be  obedient  to  them.  Here  is  clearly  discerned  the  greater 
ownership,  leaving  us  only,  as  it  were,  borrowers  of  rights.  Our  chil- 
dren are  ours  on  loan,  so  to  speak.  They  are  lent  to  us,  and  are  to  be 
returned  better  than  when  we  took  them.     We  do  not  own  them. 

It  comes  then  to  this — that  our  children  are  God's.  We  are  not 
sovereigns.  Our  will  is  not  superior.  They  belong  to  One  that  is 
hio-her.  And  if  you  doubt  that  this  is  the  spii-it  of  the  new  dispensa- 
tion, and  pre-eminently  of  Christ,  listen  to  that  passage  which  I  read  in 
your  hearing  this  morning,  from  the  eighteenth  chapter  of  Matthew, 
where  Christ  says,  "  Take  heed  that  ye  despise  not  one  of  these  little 
ones ;  for  I  say  unto  you  that  in  heaven  their  angels  do  always  behold 
the  face  of  my  Father  whiah  is  in  heaven." 

Much  difference  of  notion  has  obtained  among  commentators 
as  to  the  meaning  of  this  ;  and  in  some  respects  it  is  ditficult.  But 
one  thing  is  certain,  Jesus  did  teach  that  children  had  rights  in  heaven  ; 
that  God  did  not  think  of  parents  alone ;  that  not  men  with  scepters 
in  their  hands,  and  crowns  on  their  heads,  not  men  of  power  alone,  but 
children,  were  known  in  heaven,  and  were  recognized  there  before 
God ;  and  that  it  was  a  perilous  thing  for  a  man  to  harm  them.  Was 
there  ever  a  greater  denunciation  of  woe  than  this  ? 

"  Whoso  shall  offend  one  of  these  little  ones  which  believe  in  me,  it  were 
better  for  him  that  a  mill-stone  were  hanging  about  his  neck,  and  that  he 
were  drowned  in  the  depth  of  the  sea." 


TUE  TEAINING  OF  CHILDREN.  171 

We  have  heard  a  great  deal  said,  from  time  to  tune,  about  how 
Christianity  has  elevated  and  refined  tlie  condition  of  woman — and  too 
much  can  not  be  said  on  that  subject ;  but  not  enough  liad  been  said 
to  show  what  the  effect  of  Christianity  has  been  in  ameliorating  the 
condition  and  exalting  the  relations  of  children  to  tlieir  parents. 

We  bring  them  up  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Z,ord, 
then,  not  for  our  own  pride  and  profit,  not  even  for  tlie  child's  own 
good  simply,  but  for  its  citizenship  in  the  coming  world.  And  this  is 
to  be  kept  before  us  as  the  great  end  which  we  are  never  to  lose  sight 
of  That  gained,  and  a  man's  child  may  miss  everything  else,  and  he 
has  been  well  brought  up ;  that  missed,  and  if  he  gain  the  whole 
world,  and  lose  his  own  soul,  he  has  been  wickedly,  fjxtally  reared.  Our 
children  are  God's.  Ours  are  they,  only  for  a  specific  purpose,  which 
is  that  we  are  to  nurture  them,  and  educate  them,  in  the  fear  of  the 
Lord,  with  reference  to  their  eternal  happiness  in  the  heavenly  state. 
How  it  exalts  the  miserable  vanity  which  sometimes  seems  to  be  the 
strongest  feeling  that  parents  have,  how  it  lifts  up  ambition,  how  it 
intensifies  the  motives  for  fidelity  and  self-sacrifice  in  us  toward  our 
children,  that  we  are  working  in  them  for  the  eternal  life,  and  that 
every  child  whom  we  are  tending,  or  correcting,  or  nurtui-ing,  has  an 
angel,  or  what  is  equivalent  to  that,  watching  over  it !  There  is  an  eye 
and  a  heart  in  heaven  that  is  looking  after  every  immortal  child  on 
earth.  There  is  not  a  neglected  brat  in  all  the  purlieus  of  vice ;  there 
is  not  an  uncombed,  unwashed,  untaught  child  that  has  not  some  angel 
heart  that  is  pitying  it  in  the  heaven  above.  Parents  may  be  unfaith- 
ful, and  neighbors  cold  and  neglectful,  but  God  does  not  loi-get  the 
little  children  that  are  on  earth. 

3.  What,  under  the  Christian  system  of  educating  children,  is  the 
relation  of  family  government?  What  does  the  family  government 
seek  for  each  child?  Well,  the  end  sought  is  not  to  govern  it.  Gov- 
ernment is  a  means  to  another  end,  and  not  anything  that  is  good  in 
itself  To  be  sure,  we  govern  our  children  for  the  sake  of  the  other 
children ;  for  the  sake  of  our  own  peace ;  for  the  sake  of  the  comfort 
and  joy  of  the  wdiole  household  ;  but  these  are  incidental  things.  All 
family  government,  ni  the  first  instance,  is  for  each  child's  individual 
good.  We  govern  that  we  may  teach  the  child  to  govern  itself  at  the 
earliest  possible  period. 

When  flowers  are  blossoming,  it  is  not  on  account  of  beauty  that 
they  put  forth  their  petals  ;  it  is  not  on  account  of  fragrance  ;  it  is  not 
that  they  may  be  looked  at  and  rejoiced  in.  Underneath  every  blossom 
is  either  the  germ  of  the  fruit,  or  else  the  core  with  the  seed  ;  and  tlie 
whole  strife  of  the  plant  is,  at  the  earliest  possible  period,  to  push  for- 


172  TEE  TBAmiNQ  OF  CHILDBEN. 

ward  that  seed,  so  that  it  shall  be  prepared  to  drop,  or  begin  another 
life  of  its  own, 

And  in  family  government,  we  govern  that  we  may  be  done  gov- 
erning just  as  soon  as  we  possibly  can.  Our  object  in  governing  is  to 
teach  our  children  to  govern  themselves,  and,  therefore,  not  to  need 
our  government.  We  are  to  develop,  as  soon  as  it  is  proper,  a  free 
moral  agent,  competent  to  think  for  itself,  to  choose  wisely  for  itself, 
and  to  act  independently  for  itself  The  child,  therefore,  must  be 
treated  as  an  apprentice  of  human  life.  He  has  come  into  our  family 
as  an  apprentice  into  a  shop.  He  has  come  there  to  learn  how  to  live. 
We  are  master  workmen,  and  we  are  to  teach  him  what  we  know  in 
order  that  he  may  learn  how  to  carry  on  the  business  of  living  in 
this  life  according  to  all  the  conditions  which  obtain  around  about 
him.  He  knows  nothing.  He  has  everything  to  learn.  His  mistakes 
of  passion  are  not  therefore  depravity.  Although  when  an  adult,  a 
man  may  be  depraved,  the  mere  fact  that  a  child  goes  wrong,  feels 
wrong,  does  wrong,  is  not  to  be  set  down  so  much  to  depravity  as  to 
ignorance  of  how  to  do  anything  else.  We  are  not  born  with  the 
trade  of  conduct  learned.  We  are  born  with  a  mind  full  of  tools, 
but  with  the  hand  not  yet  trained  to  use  one  of  them. 

We  ought  not  to  count  the  mistakes  of  the  child  in  early  life,  then, 
to  be  punishable,  any  more  than  the  mistakes  of  the  hand  in  learning 
a  trade.  There  will  be  sinfulness  enough  without  it ;  but  mere  ignor- 
ance of  self-government  is  not  to  be  set  down  as  a  sin.  It  is  simply 
an  irregularity  to  be  corrected  with  the  tenderest  patience.  The  child 
does  not  know  how  to  do  better — why  should  it? 

A  great  many  persons  shudder  when  they  see  passions — various 
developments  of  wild  nature — in  their  children.  I  do  not  know  why 
one  should  shudder  at  it.  The  more  there  is  of  it,  the  more  strength 
they  have.  For  power  comes  with  the  basilar  faculties.  And  a 
parent  is  to  take  heed  of  these  things,  and  educe  these  qualities,  train 
ing  the  child  in  them.     Then  they  will  not  be  dangerous. 

A  child  must  have  time  to  learn  and  time  to  practice.  It  is  im- 
possible for  one  to  learn  the  complex  problem  of  life  under  the  very 
best  teachers  so  as  to  practice  aright  right  along  from  childhood  in 
the  cradle.  We  must  wait  for  our  children  a  great  while  before  they 
will  know  how  to  do  the  best  things  in  the  best  way. 

Parents  oftentimes  are  greatly  alarmed,  and  almost  cruel,  in  pur- 
suing the  selfishness  of  the  child.  But  selfishness  is  natural  to  the 
child.  The  child  is  by  instinct  selfish.  The  lower  life  of  every  child 
is  selfishness.  And  selfishness  is  to  be  taught  benevolence.  But  you 
cannot  teach  it  in  a  day.  Would  you  be  discouraged  because  your 
child  did  not  learn  to  write  in  an  hour  ?     Would  you  be  discouraged 


THE  TRAINING  OF  CEILDREN.  173 

because  your  child  did  not  learn  how  to  write  a  flowing  and  comely- 
hand  in  months?     You  wait  patiently  for  the  body  to  learn  anything: 
Why  do  you  not  do  the  same  thing  when  it  is  the  mind  ?     The  child 
does  not  know  any  better  than  to  be  selfish,  because  in  the  order  of  de- 
velopment the  animal  nature  comes  first,  and  the  higher  nature  after- 
wards, as  I  shall  show.    The  child  manifests  cruelty.  It  is  not  because  he 
is  necessarily  a  cruel  being.     He  does  not  know  how  to  do  any  better. 
He  has  not  been  taught.     The  child  does  not  observe  truth.     Why 
should  he  %     Everybody  has  to  learn  it.     It  is  an  artificial  state.     We 
are  not  born  knowing  how  to   manage  conscience,  and  to  apply  the 
rules  of  conscience  to  speech  and  conduct.     It  is  an  artificial  result  of 
training.     Bring  up  your  child  in  the  nvrture  and  adinonition  of 
the  Lord.    Tell  him  how  to  be  benevolent ;  how  to  be  unselfish  ;  how 
to  be  humane ;  how  to  be  truthful.    And  let  him  practice  these  things. 
If  you  are  teaching  your  child  to  take  the  steps  in  a  dancing-room,  you 
do  not  fly  either  into  a  passion  or  into  a  state  of  terroi-,  because  the 
first  time  he  attempts  to  take  the  steps  on  the  floor  in  the  presence  of 
his  companions  he  moves  awkwardly.     Children  learn  grace,  though 
some  with  more  aptitude  than  others.     Every  one  learns  where  to  put 
the  feet ;  and  at  last  it  becomes  a  habit.     He  learns  how  to  use  the 
hands,  which  are  the  most  cumbrous  and  useless  things  in  the  world, 
when  first  one  is  brought  into  company.    He  never  knows  where  to 
put  them.    And  the  child  has  to  learn  this.    It  is  a  great  thing  to  learn 
how  to  do  nothing  with  your  hands  when  there  is  nothing  to  be  done. 
And  men  are  patient  in  these  matters.     If  it  is  leaping,  if  it  is  a  salta- 
tory education,  men  say,  "  Teach  nature.     Wait  for  the  child.     Give 
him  a  chance." 

But  the  conscientious  mother  is  overwhelmed  with  grief;  and  when 
the  husband  comes  home,  she  says,  "My  dear,  Charley  has  told  a  lie !" 
Yes,  he  has.  Probably  he  has  told  a  hundred ;  and  he  will  tell  a 
hundred  more.  For  telling  the  truth  is  like  archeiy ;  and  no  boy  hits 
the  mark  the  first  time.  He  does  not  know  how  to  aim.  He  has  got 
to  learn.  And  I  will  assure  you  it  is  a  great  education  to  learn  how  to 
,  tell  the  truth.  There  are  a  great  many  people  who  never  learn  it  all 
their  life  long. 

And  the  child  is  not  to  be  either  violently  punished  nor  suspected, 
though  he  steal ;  though  he  rob  ;  though  he  be  caught  in  dirty  and 
bestial  tricks.  Why,  we  were  born  of  the  dust,  and  the  dirt  sticks  to 
us,  in  a  large  measure,  a  good  ways  up.  And  children  beginning  as 
they  do,  and  where  they  do,  it  is  not  the  less  necessary  that  they  should 
be  drilled.  It  is  all  the  more  necessary.  But  it  throws  a  light  upon 
the  task  of  the  parents.  You  are  not  to  think  that  you  have  another 
Nero  in  your  cradle,  you  are  not  to  think  that  you  have  another  Cata- 


174  THE  TRAINING  OF  CHILDREN. 

line,  because  the  lower  animal  nature  of  the  child  is  most  developed, 
and  because  evils  are  breaking  out  in  him  all  the  time.  God  says  to 
you,  "  Bring  up  the  child  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord :" 
and  you  must  teach  him  and  train  him.  Nurture,  nurture,  nurture 
him  out  of  these  animal  tendencies,  into  manly  tendencies.  And  if  you 
bring  faith  and  patience  to  the  work,  you  will  certainly  have  success. 

These  are  the  lessons  to  be  learned ;  these  are  the  life-problems  : 
these  are  the  qualities  which  may  differ  in  each  child ;  and  they  are  to 
be  learned — not  inherited.  I  sujipose  that  inheritance  has  a  great  deal 
to  do  with  it ;  I  suppose  hereditary  tendencies  go  on.  It  is  the  promise 
that  to  those  who  keep  His  commandments,  God  will  be  gracious  to 
the  third  and  fourth  generations.  This  is  the  law  of  hereditary  descent. 
If  a  man  is  educated,  his  child  will  take  on  education  easier,  because 
his  fother  transmitted  the  tendency  to  him.  And  that  tendency  will 
go  on  increasing.  If  a  man  is  conscientious,  within  certain  bounds,  his 
child  will  be  more  naturally  conscientious  than  if  there  had  not  been 
this  hereditary  tendency.  The  fother's  nature  is  transmitted  to  the 
child.  A  tendency  to  goodness  in  the  parent  begets  a  tendency  to 
goodness  in  the  offspring. 

Therefore,  some  children  will  be  more  tempted  to  passion  than 
others.  Every  child  receives  something  from  his  parents ;  so  that 
some  children  require  flir  less  instruction  than  others.  But  all  chil- 
dren, however  constituted,  require  to  be  taught  how  to  perform  the 
commonest  moral  duty.  You  must  not  think  that  you  are  going  to 
have  saints  born  to  you.  You  have  nothing  but  the  raw  materiah 
You  must  spin  it,  and  weave  it,  and  cut  it  out,  and  make  it  into  the 
gai-ment  of  the  saints. 

4.  A  child,  in  order  to  learn  how  to  govern  itself,  must  be  indulged 
in  self-government — a  thing  which  hardly  ever  occurs  to  parents.  We 
always  drive  a  horse  with  bits  in  his  mouth ;  and  parents  seem  to 
think  that  that  is  the  way  to  drive  children — to  always  keep  bits  in 
then-  mouth.  But  a  horse  never  learns  much  ;  though  some  steeds 
become  intelligent  enough  to  be  driven  without  the  bit.  Yet  how 
many  parents  set  out  to  be  so  conscientious  and  so  thorough  in  their 
moral  government,  that  they  drive  their  children  to  death ;  that  their 
children  come  out  from  under  their  hands,  spoiled  ! 

"  Well,"  a  parent  says,  "  one  thing  is  certain :  my  child  has  turned 
out  bad ;  but  you  cannot  charge  it  to  me.  I  rose  early  and  sat  up 
late ;  and  if  I  did  not  govern  that  child,  there  never  was  a  child  gov- 
erned in  this  world."  Yes,  that  is  the  very  mischief  of  it.  You  ruined 
the  child  by  governing  it  so  that  it  did  not  learn  to  govern  itself. 
Y  )ur  business  is  not  to  govern  your  children,  but  to  teach  them  sejf- 
governnient.    And  just  as  soon  as  you  can  commute  authority  in  your- 


THE  TRAINING  OF  CniLDREN.  '    175 

self  into  automatic  or  voluntary  action  in   the  child,  just  so   soon 
government  ceases,  and  the  child  is  to  be  permitted  to  govern  itself. 

A  man  winds  uj)  a  watch ,  holding  it  still ;  and  the  watch  does  not 
stir ;  and  again  he  winds,  and  winds,  and  winds ;  and  when  he  stops 
again  it  does  not  go ;  and  he  insists  upon  it  that  he  will  make  that 
watch  go  ;  and  he  keeps  on  winding  it ;  and  he  breaks  it.  But  after 
you  have  wound  a  watch  up  a  certain  way,  if  you  turn  it  a  little,  it  goes 
itself  after  that,  if  it  is  good  for  anything.  And  a  child  must  not  be 
wound  up  too  much.  Not  that  all  peremptory  obedience  is  to  be  fore- 
gone ;  for  in  many  things  life  and  health  require  absolutism  for  a  lim- 
ited time.  But  all  government,  mild  or  strict,  should  be  aimino-  all 
the  time  at  the  child's  enfranchisement ;  at  the  child's  self-government. 
That  should  be  the  genius  of  your  government.  It  is  better  for  your 
child  to  do  things  poorly,  it  is  better  for  your  child  to  do  very  imper- 
fect things,  if  thereby  he  is  learning,  than  that  he  should  do  things 
well,  if  he  is  only  following  a  copy.  Put  the  child  upon  his  own  judg- 
ment. Insist  upon  it  that  he  shall  select,  that  he  shall  choose,  that  he 
shall  find  out  how  to  do,  how  to  act,  how  to  live.  Leave  him  to  act 
in  many  things  for  himself  He  will  not  act  as  well,  perhaps,  as  if 
you  had  told  him  what  to  do  ;  but  as  a  part  of  the  process  by  which 
he  is  learning,  he  will  be  a  great  deal  more  advantaged  by  this  than  if 
you  told  him  what  to  do.  Children  are  frequently  instructed  too  much. 
They  are  overtaught. 

A  mistake  made  in  the  way  toward  self-gjvernraent  is  often  more 
salutary  than  imitative  correctness.  Put  a  pencil  in  a  child's  hand,  and 
put  a  rose  before  him,  saying  to  him,  "Copy  that  rose."  He  would 
take  his  compasses,  and  measure  it ;  but  say  to  him,  "  Copy  the  rose 
out  of  your  own  eye,  and  out  of  your  own  hand."  And  he  takes  a 
piece  of  paper  and  draws  it  the  best  that  he  can.  And  when  you 
come  to  look  at  it,  it  is  a  very  poor  copy.  Now  take  a  theorem,  as  it 
is  called — a  rose  that  has  been  cut  in  outline,  through  a  piece  of  paste- 
board— and  tell  the  child  to  take  some  water-color,  and  "  rub  in  "  that 
rose — to  paint  it.  He  does  paint  it.  And  when  it  is  finished  it  looks 
almost  like  the  real  rose.  But  which  does  a  child  the  most  good,  mak- 
ing a  rose  by  a  theorem,  or  making  it  without  any  copy  except  the 
thing  itself,  where  he  is  obliged  to  study  the  relation  of  petal  to  petal, 
and  the  relation  of  flower  to  stem,  and  the  whole  with  reference  to 
light  and  shadow  ?  The  latter,  evidently.  He  will  make  poor  work  at 
first ;  but  it  will  educate  him.  And  as  he  tries,  he  will  come  a  little 
nearer  and  a  little  nearer  yet.  And  although  he  may  not  make  the  rose, 
the  rose  will  make  him — an  artist. 

And  so  it  may  be  in  household  life,  and  so  it  often  is  in  the  incipi- 
ent stages  of  business  life,  that  the  second  best  is  better  than  the  first 


176  THE  TRAINING  OF  CHILDREN. 

best.  That  is  to  say,  a  child  that  is  learning  to  do  a  thing  of  his  own 
judgment  and  free-will,  is  profitted  ten,  twenty,  fifty  per  cent,  more 
than  if  he  were  told  how  to  do  it.  The  great  thing  is  to  teach  a  child 
how  to  do  what  he  does,  relying  upon  himself 

Trust  your  children  then,  as  soon  as  it  is  safe.  Let  them,  as  far  as 
possible,  do  the  things  which  seem  to  them  best.  Then,  afterward, 
point  out  where  they  could  have  done  better.  Then  let  them  try 
again  untrammeled.  And  then  come  in  again  with  kindly  criticism. 
So  little  by  little  make  them  self-reliant,  independent  in  judgment, 
competent  to  manage  the  affairs  that  are  around  them. 

This  course  will  not  avoid  all  evil.  Neither  will  any  course.  "We 
all  pass  toward  perfection  through  infinite  mistakes ;  and  our  children 
Avill  not  be  better  than  we  were.  No  course  will  be  in  a  hurry.  None 
will  be  perfect.  All  are  relative.  And  this  state  of  things  will  be 
more  likely  to  bring  in  the  end  a  noble  and  a  safe  character  than  any 
other. 

This  must  extend  itself  far  beyond  what  Christian  parents  often 
think.  It  is  far  better  that  your  children  should  be  taught  to  select 
Iheir  own  pleasures,  and  their  own  enterprises,  than  that  they  should 
be  arbitrarily  and  absolutely  limited  by  your  better  judgment. 

Of  course  this  has  its  limitations.  It  must  not  be  carried  too  far. 
I  should  not  choose  to  have  a  child  of  mine  run  into  absolute  vice,  or 
into  crime,  in  order  that  it  might  learn.  Within  due  bounds  and  mod- 
eration, however,  it  is  better  that  the  child  should  be  permitted  to 
judge  about  social  pleasures,  and  ten  thousand  attractive  things  in  life 
that  children  must  needs  be  trained  toward.  There  must  be  a  divided 
course.  Though  you  put  metes  and  bounds,  and  will  not  permit  cer- 
tain things  ;  yet  within  those  metes  and  bounds  let  them  exercise  then* 
judgment,  and  let  your  children  do  some  things  that  you  would  not 
prefer  them  to  do,  in  order  that  they  may  have  the  education  of  selec- 
tion. There  are  vigorous  exercises,  field  sports,  daring  efibrts  and 
attempts,  that  boys  wish  to  engage  in ;  and  it  is  better  that  they 
should  be  allowed  to  have  their  way  even  at  the  expense  of  a  good 
tumble,  than  that  they  should  always  be  told  just  what  to  do,  just 
where  to  begin,  and  just  where  to  stop.  You  tell  your  children  too 
much. 

So  in  regard  to  company,  instruct  the  children.  Rouse  up  in  them 
principles  of  honor.  To  be  parceling  out  this  family,  and  saying, 
"  You  must  not  associate  with  those  bad  boys  ;"  to  be  selecting  that 
class  and  circle,  and  incessantly  forbidding  the  children  from  going 
into  them;  to  have  your  children  swell  with  desire;  to  have  your 
children  at  home  bubbling  as  a  boiling  tea-kettle  does,  and  whining  as 
it  does — that  is  not  wholesome.     Sometimes  it  may  be  the  least  of  two 


THE  TRAINING  OF  CHILDREN.  177 

evils  5  but  as  a  general  thing  it  is  far  better  that  you  should  begin  be- 
forehand, and  educate  the  child  to  some  sense  of  taste,  to  some  sense 
of  propriety,  to  some  sense  of  character ;  and  then  say  to  him,  "  My 
child,  you  are  coming  into  such  and  such  circumstances.  I  want  you 
to  exercise  your  judgment.     I  appeal  to  your  conscience." 

A  gentleman  in  this  city  told  me  that  his  mothei-,  after  he  had 
come  to  be  ten  years  old,  almost  never  forbade  him  anylliing  ;  but  that 
he  almost  never  did  anything  w^ithout  asking  her ;  and  that  her  reply 
to  him  almost  invariably  was,  "  My  son,  think  about  it ;  and  if  you 
can  reconcile  it  to  your  own  conscience  and  your  honor,  I  shall  not  say 
a  word.  Do  it  if  you  think  it  is  best."  She  abhorred  tobacco ;  and 
he  wanted  to  smoke — for  that  devil  gets  into  boys  when  they  do  not 
know  whether  they  are  boys  or  men,  almost  invariably.  And  he  came 
to  her  on  one  occasion  to  ask  her  if  she  had  any  objection  to  his  learn- 
ing how  to  smoke.  It  was  like  gall  to  her ;  but  she  said  to  him,  "  My 
son,  I  shall  not  say  anything  about  it.  Go  and  think  it  over,  and 
make  up  your  mind.  If  you  can  reconcile  it  to  your  own  moral  sense, 
do  it.  You  must  act  as  you  think  best."  It  was  better  a  thousand 
times  than  a  No.  You  may  say  No,  and  it  will  soon  lose  its  eifect; 
but  when  a  man  sa}  s  No,  himself,  it  does  some  good.  He  weai's  it  a 
good  deal  jauntier  and  easier  under  such  circumstances  than  when  his 
mother  says  No.  And  that  which  we  want  more  than  any  thin  o-  else, 
is  to  teach  the  child  discrimination,  moral  selection,  fortitude  to  deny 
what  he  wants  to  do.  And  we  want  to  bring  the  child  to  that  pass  in 
which,  when  things  glitter  and  are  most  tempting,  he  shall  have  some- 
thing in  him  which  says,  "I  will  not."  The  boy  or  girl  is  very  nearly 
brought  up  well  that  can  say  that.  But  there  are  multitudes  of  chil- 
di-en  that  are  brought  up  who  cannot  say  it,  and  who,  therefore,  are 
not  well  brought  up. 

I  would  not  advocate  the  pressing  of  this  trust  too  far,  or  too  in- 
discriminately. That  is  to  say,  children  sometimes  come  into  life  that 
are  feeble,  and  that  must  be  carried  as  children  all  tlieir  days.  There- 
fore, there  are  those  who  probably  can  be  advanced  but  a  little  way  in 
self-government ;  and  we  must  not  sacrifice  them  to  a  theory.  Yet, 
the  general  principle  is  a  correct  one,  with  such  limitations  as  a  dis- 
creet observation  will  itself  teach  you. 

The  reason  why  so  many  children  tuin  out  well  who  seem  to  have 
been  neglected  is  now  very  plain  ;  though  people  generally  marvel  liow 
it  is.  Here  is  a  neglected  neighborhood,  and  most  of  the  bo}'s  liave 
turned  out  honest  and  industrious,  and  are  making  a  good  livino";  and 
here  are  people  who  have  been  brought  up  in  meeting,  and  meeting', 
and  meeting,  with  nothing  but  catechism,  and  catechism,  and  have  had 
none  but  good  books,  and  only  good  boys  to  go  with  ;  and  see  what 


178  TEE  TRAINING  OF  CEILDEEN. 

has  become  of  them.  "  One  man  sent  his  boy  to  college,  and  be  broke 
down  a  drunkard  before  he  got  through  the  freshman  year.  He  at- 
tempted four  or  five  times  to  reform,  but  failed ;  and  now  he  is  a  vaga- 
bond, and  has  gone  nobody  knows  where.  And  that  is  what  is  called 
bringing  up  children!"  But  stop,  let  us  look  at  this  case  a  little,  and 
Bee  what  is  in  it.  Take  a  boy.  He  may  not  have  been  sent  to  school, 
perhaps,  but  he  may  have  had  a  sensible  mother.  And  though  he  may 
not  have  had  an  eminent  and  talented  father,  yet,  he  may  have  had  a 
father  who,  though  poor  and  not  educated,  was  honest  and  industrious. 
He  may  not  have  been  perverted  by  his  parents,  in  other  words.  But 
having  had  a  reasonable  endowment  of  health  and  mental  organization, 
he  was  left  to  take  care  of  himself,  under  circumstances  that  did  not  hap- 
pen to  overmatch  his  own  prudence  and  his  own  fortitude.  The  child 
was  not  educated ;  but  he  was  taught  from  the  beginning  of  his  life  to 
govern  himself  He  learned,  when  he  was  a  little  boy,  to  think  for 
himself,  and  say  where  he  would  go,  and  where  he  would  not  go.  He 
did  not  become  prematurely  smart ;  but  he  was  fortunate  in  his  tem- 
perament and  his  associations  ;  and  when  he  had  grown  up  into  life  he 
had  learned  one  thing  (and  there  is  nothing  more  important  to  learn) 
— self-government.     He  had  learned  to  take  care  of  himself 

On  the  other  hand,  here  is  a  mother  who  is  most  profoundly  relig- 
ious and  conscientious.  Why,  she  would  die  for  her  child,  and  die 
a  hundred  times  ;  but  she  does  not  know  that  governing  a  child  means 
to  teach  it  to  take  care  of  itself,  without  anybody's  looking  after  it. 
And  so  she  looks  after  her  child.  When  it  goes  to  bed,  she  looks  after 
it ;  and  when  it  gets  up  she  looks  after  it ;  and  every  step  it  takes  dur- 
ing the  day  she  looks  after  it.  It  is,  "  My  dear,  do  not  do  this,"  and, 
"  My  dear,  do  not  do  that."  The  child  can  scarcely  yawn  without  going 
to  ask  its  mother's  permission.  It  is  followed  and  hedged  in,  and  cuffed 
gently  this  way  and  that  way.  And  after  fifteen  years  have  passed, 
the  child  is  a  baby  yet,  as  far  as  competency  of  judgment  is  concerned. 
It  has  not  learned  how  to  take  cai-e  of  itself  And  having  a  strong 
temperament,  and  being  frequently  restrained,  it  has  not  been  taught 
to  govern  its  feelings  by  an  exercise  of  them.  They  are  all  dammed 
up ;  and  they  are  without  practice.  If  children  are  imaginative,  and 
full  of  sensibility,  the  world  to  them  is  a  great  wonder-box.  And  when 
they  come  to  be  twenty-one  years  of  age,  they  go  out  and  say,  "  I  have 
never  seen  anything ;  I  never  felt  anything  ;  I  do  not  know  anything  ; 
I  have  always  been  shut  up  at  home ;  and  now  I  am  going  to  have  my 
revenge.  I  will  first  find  out  a  thing  or  two."  They  are  like  men 
who  go  down  into  the  battle  naked — neither  with  weapons  of  offense 
nor  weapons  of  defense.  And  they  are  smitten  through  and  destroyed. 
Then  people  say,    "  How  astonishing  that  a  child  who  has  been  so  thor- 


THE  TRAINING  OF  CHILDREN.  179 

oughly  brought  up  should  perish  so !"  The  very  mischief  is  that  he  was 
destroyed  iu  the  family.  The  very  thing  that  the  father  and  motlier 
were  told  to  do,  they  did  not  do,  namely,  to  teach  the  child  how  to  take 
care  of  himself.     They  took  care  of  him  all  the  while. 

The  child  must  sin  if  he  is  going  to  learn  not  to  sin.  You 
must  let  him  stumble  in  order  that  the  next  time  he  may  know  where 
to  put  his  feet.  The  child  learns  by  the  things  which  he  suffers,  the 
parent  standing  by  to  say,  "  There  is  the  cause  and  there  is  the  effect. 
Now  look,  after  this."  This  disciplines  the  child's  conscience,  and  dis- 
ciplines his  power  of  selection. 

If  it  is  not  safe  to  do  this,  the  other  tiling  is  still  less  safe.  That  is 
what  is  meant  by  the  phrase  "governing  too  much."  I  say  that  it  is  not 
governing  too  much:  it  is  governing  wrong.  It  is  not  governing  so  as 
to  produce  a  potency  in  the  subject. 

5.  There  is  an  order  in  nature  for  the  development  of  the  cluild 
which  we  must  observe  and  follow.  First  and  earliest,  is  the  animal  life. 
And  it  is  strongest  as  being  the  substratum,  as  it  were ;  the  soil  out  of 
which  the  othei's  spring.  Next  is  the  line  of  affection  and  imagination. 
And  the  imagination  is  fertile  and  stronger  far  than  reason.  All  the 
earlier  instruction  takes  on  the  imaginative  form,  the  pictorial  form,  the 
form  of  fable  and  parable.  Later  comes  the  intellectual  and  the  ab- 
stract iu  the  line  of  instruction.     And  last  comes  the  moral  sense. 

Now  the  child  does  not  carry  up  all  these  elements  together. 
Everything  does  not  go  along  at  once.  The  child  is  literal  and  animal 
at  first,  and  so  it  is  for  a  year ;  but  little  by  little  it  opens  up  out  of  the 
animal  state.  That  which  comes  next  is  always  the  affectional  and 
the  imaginative.  Still  later — and  frequently  quite  late  ;  for  these 
things  come  at  different  times  with  different  children — come  the  rea- 
son and  the  moral  sense.  When  the  reason  begins  to  dawn,  first  is 
the  perceptive  reason,  as  that  which  concerns  itself  with  external  ob- 
jects.    Next  is  the  reflective.      That  comes  later  than  the  percep'tive. 

The  parent  then  ought  to  know  the  order  by  which  the  child  de- 
velops itself,  in  order  to  know  how  to  properly  train  and  discipline  that 
child  while  he  is  yet  a  little  animal.  It  is  all  in  vain  to  attempt  to 
make  him  a  little  saint.  You  cannot  anticipate  nature.  Nature  fur- 
nishes rules  hi  respect  to  culture.  We  must  give  nature  time,  there- 
fore. Our  children  will  be  animals,  but  they  Avill  leave  their  animal 
nature  behind  them  little  by  little,  as  they  are  going  on  and  going  up. 
Do  not  be  afraid  because  your  child  is  not  perfect  at  first.  We  must 
have  faith  to  believe  that  each  successive  development  of  the  child  will 
correct  the  pieceding. 

Does  your  child  exhibit  animal  instinct    when  he  is  five  years  old  ? 
Be  of  good  courage.     Correct  it.     Check  it.    And  the  lower  down  tho 


180  THE  TRAINING  OF  CniLDREN. 

child  is,  the  more  is  the  rod  beneficial.  Physical  force  for  physical  con- 
ditions. As  you  go  away  from  physical  conditions,  affectional  in- 
fluences come  in.  And  as  you  go  still  higher,  the  intellectual  and 
moral  influences  come  in. 

There  is,  as  I  have  said,  an  order  of  nature  ;  and  when  the  child 
lives  in  the  physical  life,  physical  pain  is  better  than  argument  which  it 
does  not  understand  and  does  not  feel.  But  it  belongs  to  the  lowest 
form  ;  and  it  should  be  always  with  this  aim.  The  tendency  should 
be  to  disuse  it  as  soon  as  possible  by  carrying  the  child  up  to  the  next 
stage. 

Xow,  when  the  child  comes  lo  the  afiectional  state,  it  rids  itself  of 
a  great  many  faults  that  you  could  not  correct  without  the  aid  of  na- 
ture. A  child  will  outgrow  most  of  his  faults  by  the  time  he  is  five  or 
six  or  seven  years  of  age. 

"  My  first  child,"  says  the  parent,  "was  such  a  good  child!  But 
God  took  it  away  early.  I  was  not  good  enough  for  it.  But  this  next 
child — it  does  seem  to  me  that  the  old  Nick  is  in  it,  it  is  such  an  aw- 
ful child.  It  lies,  and  steals,  and  is  full  of  all  manner  of  nasty  hab- 
its. I  do  not  know  what  I  shall  do  with  this  child.  I  have  prayed  over 
it,  and  pi-ayed  over  it,  and  prayed  over  it." 

]My  dear  friends,  fiir  be  it  from  me  to  ridicule  prayer ;  but  then  do 
you  suppose  that  if  your  stove  was  broken,  the  way  to  mend  it  would 
be  to  pray  ?  If  your  watch  was  broken  you  would  send  it  to  the 
watchmaker.  And  do  you  suppose,  if  you  should  go  in  April  and 
stand  under  an  apple-tree  and  pray  for  the  apples  to  get  ripe,  and  for 
the  pippins  to  drop  down  into  your  cajD,  that  they  would?  You  must 
wait  all  summer  for  them  to  ripen. 

I  believe  in  praying  for  children, and  laying  up  prayer  for  them  ; 
but  I  do  not  believe  in  praying  for  a  child,  expecting  that  the  prayers 
are  going  to  be  answered  in  that  child  by  a  course  which  reverses  the 
order  of  nature  and  works  a  miracle  in  it.  A  child  that  is  only  five  or 
six  or  seven  years  of  age,  is  living  in  but  one  portion  of  himself,  and 
almost  wholly  in  his  animal  conditions.  Pray  that  you  may  be  patient ; 
pray  that  you  may  have  grace  until  he  comes  up  one  stage  higher  ;  and 
by  and  by  you  begin  to  draw  out  the  child's  afi"ection,  and  to 
connect  him  with  processes  or  a  system  of  self-control.  And  as  the 
family  gets  larger,  family  government  always  gets  larger,  because  one 
child  helps  to  govern  another.  The  first  child  comes  into  the  second 
stage,  and  you  will  find  that  many  of  his  faults  disappear ;  so  you 
will  say  to  yourself,  "Well,  the  child  is  really  getting  better."  That  is 
to  say,  the  child  has  two  sets  of  faculties ;  and  the  higher  ones  are  be- 
ginning to  govern  the  lower  ones ;  the  afiection  is  beginning  to  have  as- 
cendancy ovei  the  animal  nature.  But  in  the  management  of  the  afiec- 


TEE  TBAINING  OF  CEILBBEN.  181 

tion,  which  is  full  of  selfishness,  full  of  envies  and  jeal®usies,  full  of  com- 
petitions, full  of  all  manner  of  irregularities,  your  educated  moral 
sense  is  offended,  and  you  are  in  tribulation  again  about  your  child. 
You  pray  to  God  to  sanctify  the  child  early,  and  watch  for  the  answer 
of  your  prayer,  and  are  disappointed  that  it  does  not  come.  But  wait. 
When  the  child  is  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  of  age  it  undergoes  a  physical 
change,  not  only,  but  with  that  change  there  comes  in  also  a  moral 
change.  Deeper  moral  impulses  and  wider  inspirations  and  aspirations 
now  manifest  themselves.  And  you  will  find,  if  the  child  has  been 
carefully  governed  and  guided,  that  those  faults  which  belong  to  the 
second  stage  disappear  of  themselves.  The  third  range  of  motives  then 
come  in,  and  they  correct  the  faults  of  the  second,  as  the  second  came 
in  to  correct  tliose  of  the  first. 

Now, this  order  of  nature  must  be  observed,  not  simply  for  the 
wiser  bringing  up  of  the  child,  but  also  for  the  removing  of  care,  the 
burden  of  anxiety,  and  sense  of  awful  responsibility  to  which  many 
parents  are  in  bondage. 

Let  me  say,  here,  that  I  would  not  have  these  remarks  construed 
into  a  disbelief  that  children  may  grow  up  Christians  from  tlie  cradle. 
I  believe  they  may.  But  you  are  not  to  look  for  a  Christian  man  in  a 
child's  skin.  There  will  be  just  so  much  as  there  is  of  the  child,  with 
all  its  faults  and  irregularities.  The  evidences  that  a  child  is  Christ's 
are  not  the  same  evidences  which  a  full-grown  man  exhibits  who  is  a 
Christian.  I  believe  that  children  may  be  converted  and  consecrated 
to  God  from  the  cradle — from  the  moment  that  they  begin  to  experience 
symptoms  of  the  heart;  but  then, they  will  not  be  Christians  of  the 
same  pattern,  or  magnitude,  or  sympathy,  or  balance  that  we  see 
among  adults.  They  will  require  other  treatment,  and  more  treat- 
ment of  certain  sorts,  than  those  who  have  come  into  mature  life. 

But  while  I  believe  in  early  conversions,  I  do  not  believe  in  early 
saintship.  I  think  there  is  nothing  more  monstrous  than  a  little  five- 
year-old  Puritan.  Where  there  are  these  prodigies  of  piety,  one  of  two 
things  is  usually  true.  The  whole  life  of  the  child  is  premature,  and  he 
is  marked  for  early  death,  and  everything  rushes  to  momentary  ripe- 
ness, and  he  withers  and  dies  ;  or  he  is  over-cerebrated  ;  he  has  not  the 
muscle  and  bone  and  strength  to  resist  the  enormous  reaction.  High 
mental  endowment  may  have  a  premature  genius  for  goodness.  And 
it  is  beautiful.  But  it  is  unnatuural,  and  is  not  to  be  coveted — and  all 
the  more  because  these  children  break  the  hearts  of  parents  when  they 
die  and  go. 

But  those  that  live  and  grow  up — the  Lord  save  me  from  them. 
Deliver  me  from  premature  saintship.  I  cannot  endure  to  see  a  girl 
forty  years  old  before  she  is  five.     I  cannot  endure  to  see  a  boy  imi- 


182  TEE  TEAINING  OF  CEILBBEN. 

tating  Isaiah  or  Dante  when  he  is  not  yet  out  of  his  pantalettes.  Child- 
hood is  the  best  thing  for  childhood,  youth  is  the  best  thing  for  youth, 
middle  life  is  the  '  best  thing  for  middle  life,  and  old  age  is  the  best 
thing  for  old  age.  But  old  age  grafted  on  to  a  young  stalk  is  a  very 
poor  graft. 

The  attempt,  therefore,  to  stuff  our  children  with  religious  experien- 
ces ;  the  attempt  to  make  our  children  talk  and  pray  and  work  like  grown 
folks,  is  most  disagreeable,  as  well  as  most  unnatural.  I  think  there  is 
great  injury  in  any  such  precipitate  and  premature  development  of  a  child. 
Let  the  child  be  an  animal  until  it  has  outgrown  animalism.  Let  it  be 
social  until  it  begins  to  be  developed  into  the  moral.  Let  the  moral 
element  come  into  ascendency  and  permanency  when  it  comes  by  na- 
ture to  be  the  strongest  part.  Till  that  time  you  must  be  to  the  child 
conscience  and  sensibility  and  taste.  You  must  minister  to  the 
child  by  love  from  without,  until  he  has  by  the  natural  evolvement  of 
nature  come  to  a  point  where  he  can  develop  his  own  conscience,  and 
reason,  and  higher  faculties. 

As  there  is  many  and  many  a  child  that  is  ripe  early,  and  breaks 
down  in  later  life,  so  there  is  many  and  many  a  child  that  bids  fair  for 
the  halter  until  he  is  after  fifteen,  and  becomes  noble  and  self-com- 
manding in  life  as  he  grows  older. 

Ethical  duties,  then,  should  be  learned  from  the  beginning;  but  high 
religious  experiences  ought  not  to  be  urged  upon  any  child.  If  religion 
is  brought  to  children  in  any  exciting  form,  it  should  be  brought  to 
them  in  its  sweetest  and  most  pleasurable  forms, 

6.  If  the  child  is  a  scholar,  then  the  parent  is  a  teacher;  and  the 
parent  should  know  his  tastes,  and  the  tools  with  which  he  is  to  work. 

First,  governing  mind  is  based  on  one  simple  fict,  namely,  that  in  the 
philosophy  of  the  human  mind  one  faculty  is  to  be  governed  or  changed 
in  its  action  by  the  excitation  of  another  and  opposite  faculty.  We 
undertake  to  put  down  a  feeling  both  in  ourselves  and  in  our  pupils. 
But  the  art  of  putting  down  a  feeling  consists  in  the  art  of  raising  up 
another  one  which  will  put  it  down.  If  the  child  is  peevish,  there  is 
no  iise  scolding  the  child  for  peevishness.  Let  the  peevishness  alone, 
and  awaken  kind  and  benevolent  feelings.  Benevolence  will  take  care 
of  peevishness,  and  you  will  be  saved  the  trouble. 

Is  the  child  full  of  audacity  ?  Touch  the  feeling  of  fear  in  the  child 
by  an  appropriate  representation.  You  do  not  need  to  restrain  the 
audacity  directly.  Correct  audacity  by  fear.  Fear  will  take  care  of  it. 
Or,  vice  versa,  courage,  being  raised  in  the  child  by  praise,  overcomes 
fear.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  power  in  sympathetically  lending 
courage  to  a  child.  If  children  are  imaginative,  and  full  of  sensi- 
bility and  acute  temperament,  they  may  often  suffer  immensely  from 


TUi:  TBAINING  OF  CRILDEEN.  183 

fear.  I  am  not  mncli  of  a  coward,  as  I  am  accustomed  to  think  of  my- 
self;  but  I  went  through  a  gi-eat  deal  of  suffering  of  fear  in  my  child- 
hood, when  it  was  not  needful.  For,  under  some  persons'  care,  I  was 
taught  to  be  very  courageous  ;  and  then  I  was  able  to  face  things 
which  at  other  times  I  slunk  down  from  with  the  utmost  trepidation 
A  mother  can  breathe  her  large  courage  into  a  child,  either  morally  or 
physically. 

The  art  of  governing  a  child's  mind,  then,  is  to  know  what  part  of 
it  to  touch,  in  order  to  countervail  some  other  part.  It  is  on  this 
theory  that  all  our  faculties  are  in  mates,  or,  as  it  were,  in  counter- 
parts. Over  against  every  single  one  of  the  faculties  of  the  human 
mind  there  is  a  corresponding  or  opposite  faculty.  And  so  govern- 
ment comes.     The  excitation  of  one  faculty  is  the  restraint  of  another. 

If,  therefore,  fear  goes  down,  it  is  because  courage  is  going  up.  Or 
if  courage  is  running  too  high,  lift  up  fear,  and  then  courage  will  go 
down.  If  the  child  is  full  of  grief,  mirth  will  oftentimes  cure  it.  And 
if  mirth  is  carried,  too  high,  and  the  child  is  unduly  gay  and  frivolous, 
then  conscience,  being  touched,  will  frequently  control  and  restrain  it. 
And.  so  a  Avorld  of  advice,  a  world,  of  educating,  a  world  of  pointing 
out  this  and  that,  may  be  saved.  You  can  psychologically  teach  the 
human  mind,  sooner,  you  can  more  speedily  bring  the  cliild  to  make 
use  of  his  mind,  than  you  can  teach  him  to  do  it  by  philosophizings 
and  explanations,  half  of  which  he  does  not  understand. 

There  is  also  to  be  remembered  this  general  rule  :  that  the  feeling 
which  you  bring  to  your  child  is  probably  the  feeling  which  will  exist 
in  him.  If  you  are  courageous,  your  child  will  naturally  feel  the  in- 
spiration of  courage.  There  will  be  a  contagion.  I  believe  that  there 
is  a  mesmeric  influence,  a  magnetic  power,  an  aura,  or  whatever  you 
please  to  call  it,  that  goes  out  of  one  feeling  in  a  man,  and  touches  the 
corresponding  feeling  in  another  man.  If  you  go  to  your  child  full  of 
mirth,  the  child  will  laugh  before  you  get  near  it.  If  you  go  to  the 
child  with  great  benevolence  and  kindness,  the  child  runs  into  the 
same  state  of  feeling.  If  your  child  is  irritated,  and  that  irritates  you, 
and  you  go  to  the  child  to  compel  him,  the  result  is  that  he  gets  mad- 
der and  madder.  He  may  not  dare  to  show  it ;  he  may  be  restrained 
from  exhibiting  his  anger  by  the  motive  of  fear ;  but  it  is  there.  If  the 
child  is  excited,  you  must  be  calm.  If  the  child  is  revengeful,  you 
must  be  most  lenient,  most  forgiving.  If  the  child  is  in  any  mood  that 
you  abhor,  it  i  5  not  for  you  to  show  your  abhorrence  of  it.  Every 
parent  must  be  a  pujdl  first,  and  then  be  a  teacher.  What  you  want 
your  child  to  be,  you  must  learn  to  carry  to  him. 

Lastly,  the  supreme  influence  of  moral  government  in  the  family, 
in  the  state,  and  in  God's  universe,  I  believe  to  be  the  liglit  of  kind- 


184  THE  TBAININQ  OF  CEILBBEF. 

ness.  Whatever  may  be  the  thing  that  you  undertake,  the  law  of 
kindness  in  the  eye  and  on  the  lip  and  in  the  hand — in  tilings  negative 
and  in  things  positive  and  affirmative — the  law  of  the  household,  the 
law  of  association,  must  be  kindness.  That  is  the  summer  in  which  all 
the  evil  that  is  in  children  will  naturally  tend  to  wither  early,  and  all 
the  good  that  is  in  them  will  go  forward  with  root  and  with  stem, 
bearing  abundant  fruit.  If  you  would  govern  your  children  well  day 
by  day,  remember  God  is  love.  God  condemned  the  loorld  for  sin, 
never  converted  a  soul.  God  so  lonedthe  icorld  that  He  gave  His 
Son  for  it,  has  converted  multitudes.  It  is  love  that  is  the  Magister  ; 
it  is  love  that  is  the  Emperor ;  it  is  love  that  is  the  God. 

Now,  in  closing,  let  me  say  to  the  young  that  ai*e  moving  forward 
along  the  appointed  paths  of  life,  that  gaiety  and  joyfulness,  and  enter- 
ing into  the  marriage  relation,  and  sending  forth  the  joyful  outcry, 
"  Behold  a  man-child  is  born  into  the  world,"  is  all  well.  Do  not  think 
that  I  am  out  of  sympathy  with  you  in  this.  I  will  rejoice  with  your 
joy.  But  still  there  is  not  any  thing  so  serious  in  life ;  there  is  no  step 
that  is  so  full  of  weighty  responsibility  as  accepting  from  the  hand  of 
God  one  of  his  little  ones,  which  you  are  to  train.  For  the  light  and 
glory  of  having  children  in  the  family  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  pride  and 
social  pleasure.  It  is  a  matter  of  the  greatest  moment.  And  while  I 
would  not  take  away  from  your  joy,  I  would  temper  it  with  a  deeper 
insight.  I  would  give  you  a  sense  of  what  the  meaning  of  this  open- 
ing into  life  is,  that  you  may  bring  to  it  all  your  heart,  and  all  your 
soul,  and  cry  unto  God  for  help  in  this  great  work  of  your  life.  And 
let  me  say  still  further,  that  I  count  the  reaiing  of  children  in  the 
household  to  be  one  of  God's  opportunities,  than  which  there  scarcely 
can  be  any  other  greater.  I  do  not  undervalue  other  relations  in  life. 
To  be  a  magistrate,  to  be  a  noble,  to  be  a  king,  where  these  things  are 
esteemed ;  to  be  a  genius  and  an  instructor  in  the  community  at  large 
— this  certainly  has  its  dignity  and  its  nobility.  But,  after,  all,  there 
is  no  place,  it  seems  to  me,  that  realizes  so  much  of  the  virtue  of 
Christ's  heart,  and  there  is  no  place  that  is  so  much  like  heaven,  and 
there  is  no  place  that  will  be  sr>  crowned  with  honors,  as  that  family 
in  which  the  father  and  mother  are  striving  to  rear  their  children  for 
usefulness  in  this  life,  and  for  immortality  in  the  life  which  is  to  come. 

You  know  very  well  that  I  do  not  believe  there  ought  to  be  any 
prejudice,  nor  public  sentiment,  nor  custom,  nor  law,  to  prevent  a 
woman  speaking  in  public,  if  she  has  a  desire  to  speak,  or  sing- 
ing in  public  if  she  has  a  genius  for  song.  I  believe  that  a  woman 
may  do  anything  which  she  feels  called  to  do,  and  can  do  well.  But 
while  I  honor  these  things,  and  stand  for  the  liberty  of  woman  in  re- 
gard to  them,  it  must  not  be  thought  that  I  consider  a  woman  who 


THE  TRAINING  OF  CEILDBEN.  185 

is  so  clothed  with  genius  more  iioble  on  that  account.  I  hold  that 
the  woman  who  sings  hymns  over  the  cradle  that  her  child  may  learn 
the  eternal  songs  of  heaven,  is  doing  a  higher  work  than  if  she  were 
like  Jenny  Lind,  and  sang  on  the  concert  stage.  I  hold  that  no  orator, 
and  no  singer,  and  no  artist-worker,  is  to  be  compared  with  the  mother 
who  is  carving  the  image  of  God  in  the  soul  of  her  little  child.  And 
no  mother  need  fear  that  she  is  obscure  ;  no  mother  need  long  to  go 
out  of  the  household,  as  if  it  were  an  obscure  place.  The  Gate  of 
Heaven  is  inscribed  over  every  humble  mmily ;  and  no  Christian  mother 
who  is  teaching  her  children  in  the  school-house  of  her  own  heart,  need 
crave  any  higher  walk  than  that.  Ee  content ;  thank  God  for  the 
privilege  ;  be  faithful  to  your  charge ;  and  you,  winged  as  the  angels 
are,  shall  lead  your  young  immortal  one  day  higher  and  higher 
into  the  heavenly  land,  until  you  pause  at  the  feet  of  Jesus. 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON.* 

O  Lord  our  God !  wilt  thou  open  thine  arms  and  take  thy  children  into 
the  bosom  of  thy  love.  As  thou  hast  committed  them  to  the  love  of  their  pa- 
rents, so  take  both  parents  and  children  unto  thyself.  And  teach  these 
parents  how  to  teach  their  offspring,  so  that  both  may  find  their  way,  through 
faith  and  patience,  to  the  heavenly  land.  Give  them  great  joy  of  their  chil- 
dren. May  they  be  more  precious  to  them  than  all  other  things  on  earth. 
May  they  be  willing  to  spend  and  to  be  spent  for  them.  May  they  not  ask 
that  they  shall  have  their  reward  in  this  life  (yet  grant  them  somewhat  of  it) . 
but  may  they  look  forward  and  believe  in  that  life  which  is  to  come,  when 
they  shall  be  gathered,  and  all  their  children  with  them,  group  on  gToup, 
none  left  behind,  none  lost,  all  saved,  through  the  unspeakable  mercy  of  our 
Lord  Jesu   Christ. 

Gi-ant,  we  beseech  of  thee,  that  parents  who  are  rejoicing  in  their  chil- 
dren may  know  how  to  rejoice  in  the  Lord.  Grant  that  those  who  are  heavy- 
heai'ted  over  their  children  may  be  lightened  of  their  care  and  of  their  bur- 
den, and  so  guided  of  thee  that  they  shall  not  fail  to  bring  their  children  with 
them  when  they  appear  in  Z ion  and  before  God. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  look  upon  those  who  have  consecrated 
their  children,  whether  in  the  public  assembly  or  privately  m  their  own  cos- 
ets.  Accept  that  dedication  which  they  have  mad(!  of  their  children  ;  and  in 
so  far  as  it  lies  in  theui,  may  they  be  able  to  bring  up  their  children  so  that 
th  y  shall  l)e  honorable  and  prosperous  in  this  life,  and  also  enter  the  life  that 
is  to  come. 

Grant,  we  pray  thee,  tliat  we  may  be  more  and  more  rebu'ced  at  our  want 
of  faith,  and  our  want  oi  lidel'ty,  and  our  want  of  earnestness, in  rearing  our 
children  for  God.  Teach  us  how  to  use  the  world  in  their  behalf  without 
alni^irg  it.  Teach  us  how  so  to  set  an  example  before  them  that  we  may  be 
a  living  Gospel  to  them. 

Bk'ss  mothers,  through  whose  sufferings  we  came  into  thii  world,  and 
whose  life  was  given  fo.  our  life.    And  bless,  we  beseech  of  thee,  their  soli* 

•IinmecUately  following  the  baptism  of  children. 


186  THE  TRAINING  OF  CHILDBBN. 

tude,  and  all  the  thoughts  which  they  pondered  deeply.  Bless  mothers  as 
they  set  their  children  apart  in  the  sanctuary  at  home,  and  pray  over  them, 
and  instruct  them  in  the  way  of  the  Lord.  And  grant  that  they  may  take 
comfort  hy  the  way,  and  rejoice  in  the  tasks  and  the  duties  which  thou  hast 
made  incumbent  upon  them. 

And  have  compassion  upon  any  who  are  not  able  to  teach  their  children 
of  Christ ;  who  know  thee  not  themselves ;  who  cannot  teach  their  little  ones 
the  way  of  life  because  they  have  not  found  it  for  their  own  feet.  Lord  Jesus, 
in  the  greatness  of  their  care  for  their  children,  disclose  thyself  unto  them ; 
and  may  every  parent  that  is  training  children  for  immortality,  make  sure  of 
the  help  of  God.  And  may  thy  love  illumine  their  darkness,  and  fill  them 
with  hope, and  with  courage,  and  with  true  wisdom.  And  we  beseech  of  thee 
that  thou  wilt  teach  us  how  to  refine  our  life  for  our  children  more  and  more. 
Make  our  homes  more  and  more  fuL  of  the  heavenly  Spirit.  Cast  out  all  in- 
firmity, and  all  rudeness,  and  all  sin,  and  all  clamor,  and  all  things  that  offend 
the  purity  of  thine  eye,  and  the  sweetness  of  thine  heart.  And  we  pray  that 
Christian  households  may  more  and  more  be  those  lights  that  shall  guide  men 
from  vice  to  virtue,  and  from  the  ways  of  this  world  and  its  wickedness  to 
the  ways  of  Jesus  Christ  an  1  his  virtue  and  joy. 

Grant  thy  blessing  to  rest,  we  pray  thee,  upon  those  who  are  teaching. 
May  those  to  whom  thou  hast  committed  the  care  of  young  souls  waiting  for 
the  seal,  not  be  overburdened  with  fear  and  anxiety.  May  they  know  how 
to  cast  their  care  upon  the  Lord,  and  have  such  a  holy  confidence  and  such  a 
blessed  courage  that  their  children  shall  catch  the  inspiration,  and  overcome 
their  easily  besetting  sins. 

And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  schools  for  instruction,  both  in  secular 
kn  iwledge  and  in  things  divine.  Bless  our  Sabbath-schoo  s  and  Bible-classes, 
and  all  Mission-schools,  and  all  those  that,  to-day,  everywhere  attempt  to 
press  knowledge  upon  the  susceptible  mind.  Will  the  Lord  guide  them  and 
bless  them  abundantly. 

We  pray  for  our  whole  land.  We  pray  for  knowledge,  that  it  may  spread, 
and  that  virtue  may  come  with  it.  May  temperance  and  self-denial  and  all 
true  Christian  charity  prevail  throughout  this  whole  land. 

Hasten  the  time  when  all  nations  shall  know  thee;  wl:en  all  sL all  be  in- 
structed and  competent  .o  instruct  their  offspring.  And  let  the  glory  of  the 
Lord,  so  long  delayed,  at  last  break  forth  as  the  morning,  and  all  the  earth 
see  thy  salvation. 

We  ask  it  for  Christ  Jesus'  sake.    A  men. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 


Our  Father,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  the 
word  of  instruction  which  we  have  endeavored  to  give.  May  it  do  good.  May 
it  incite  more  thought,  more  prayer,  more  searching  to  see  if  it  be  in  accord- 
ance with  thy  mind  and  will.  Bless  parents,  and  teach  them  how  to  be  better 
parents.  Bless  their  children  ;  and  in  spite  of  the  mistakes  which  they  make, 
may  thy  grace  triumph  over  their  imperfect  teaching.  And  may  our  chil- 
dren grow  up  to  adorn  life.  And  may  they  by  faith  take  hold  of  the  prom- 
ises of  the  heavenly  laud.  Bless  us  when  we  sing  once  more;  and  go  with  us 
to  our  homes ;  and  finally,  bring  us  to  our  homes  above. 

We  ask  it  for  Chr  st's  sake.    Amen. 


XI. 

Watching  with  Christ. 


INVOCATION. 

Our  Father,  we  draw  near  to  thee  as  children.  "We  trust  in  thy  love.  We 
believe  in  it.  All  good  things  thou  desirest  for  us  more  than  we  do  for  our- 
selves ;  and  thou  art  guided  ia  thy  benefaction  by  InflmtAJ  wisdom.  We 
open  our  hearts,  and  plead  our  necessity,  saying,  Thy  will  be  done.  Grant 
unto  us  thy  life-givmg  power .  We  beseech  of  thee  that  we  may  be  able  to- 
day to  discern  thee ;  to  feel  thy  presence ;  to  rejoice  in  the  Lord  ;  to  put  all 
our  trust  in  thee.  May  the  service  of  the  sanctuary,  may  our  meditations, 
may  our  offerings  of  praise,  may  our  fellowship  of  song  and  our  labor 
of  instruction  be  profitable  to  us,  and  acceptable  to  thee,  O  Christ,  our  Re- 
deemer.   Amen. 

u 


WATCHING  ¥1TH  CHRIST. 


'  "What !  could  ye  not  watch  with  me  one  hour  ?"— Matt.  XXVI.,  40. 


There  was  a  particular  place  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  in 
Gethsemane,  to  which  Christ  often  resorted.  It  was  a  sacred  place  to 
him.  It  is  said,  "  For  Jesus  often  repaired  thither  with  his  disciples  ;" 
so  it  would  seem  that  he  did  not  select,  every  time  that  he  withdrew 
himself  from  Jerusalem  and  went  out  there,  just  such  a  place  as  hap- 
pened to  suit  him ;  but  that  he  had  chosen  some  nook ;  that  there  was 
some  place  to  which  he  had  become  wonted,  and  which  was  specially 
dear  to  him.  For  he  knew  the  benefit  of  association.  We  leave  some- 
thing of  our  hearts  in  every  place  where  joy  or  sorrow  comes  to  us.  Our 
experience  seems  to  go  out  to  the  material  objects  which  are  around 
us,  when  we  have  a  heart-history  ;  and  our  feelings  seem  to  become  the 
attributes  of  those  outward  objects,  and  to  endow  them  with  life.  So  our 
imagination  takes  hold.  And  afterward,  all  the  things  which  were 
around  about  us  when  we  were  greatly  exercised  in  soul  seem  to  reach 
forth  to  us,  and  to  enter  into  sympathy  with  us,  as  if  they  were  living 
beings.  And  so  the  hearth ;  the  door-stone  ;  the  old  tree,  that  threw 
its  branches  over  the  house  where  we  were  reared  as  children;  the  well, 
into  which  from  day  to  day  many  tears,  it  may  be,  were  dropped,  as 
the  mother  went  to  and  fro  ;  the  brook,  that  sang  to  our  sighing  ;  the 
mountain  ravine,  where  we  wandered  to  get  rid  of  busy  life  ;  a  thousand 
places  that  in  youth,  or  in  struggling  manhood,  have  been  witnesses 
to  our  deep  emotions — these  things  become  personal  to  us,  and 
afterwards  throw  back,  in  theu-  shadow,  something  of  our  own  selves 
upon  us,  and  greet  us  with  a  human  sympathy.  And  this  is  the  only 
consideration  of  which  material  things  are  susceptible.  No  jDriestly 
hand  can  give  virtue  to  stone  or  to  mortar.  No  service,  and  no  sprink- 
ling of  water  thrice  holy,  can  make  any  place  holy.  There  is  but  one 
priest,  and  that  is  the  human  heart,  and  there  is  but  one  thing,  and  that 
is  human  experience,  which  can  strike  through  material  objects  and 
give  to  them  thereafter  a  sacredness. 

Where  men  have  studied  long  ;  where  the  artist  has  worked  long ; 

StTNDAY   MOBNmo,  Nov.  20,  1870.    Lesson  :   Collosians   I.      Hymns   (Plymouth  Col- 
lection) :  Nos,  284,  709, 1323. 


188  '  WATCHING   WITH  CUEIST. 

where  the  heart  that  has  been  tried  has  poured  itself  forth  in  prayer  i 
where  love  has  met  us ;  where  it  has  planted  its  immortal  seeds  ;  where- 
ever  our  deepest  and  truest  life  has  been  unfolded — there  we  have  a 
consecrated  place,  a  temple  "  not  built  with  hands"  ;  and  thither  we  are 
j)rone  to  resort  as  to  a  home.     That  is  the  heart's  work. 

When  birds  build  then- nests,  they  first  gather  rude  sticks  and  pliant 
twigs,  and  bend  thani  to  shape ;  and  then  with  mud,  or  glutinous  se- 
cretions, they  fill  up  the  interstices.  On  this  foundation  they  lay  feath 
ers  and  soft  grasses  and  hair.  When  all  is  gathered  and  laid  down, 
they  settle  themselves  into  the  rounded  nest;  and,  turning  about  and 
about,  they  smooth  and  finish  the  nest  with  their  own  breast.  So  it  is 
with  men  that  make  homes.  It  is  the  bosom  that  does  it  finally,  and 
not  the  bill  nor  the  claw. 

Under  these  olive  trees  there  was  a  temple  to  Christ,  compared  with 
which  the  grand  and  glittering  temple  over  against  it  was  colder  than 
the  stone  that  it  was,  and  emptier  than  the  stone.  Here,  in  this  one 
place  to  which  he  had  been  accustomed  to  resort  with  his  disciples,  he 
had  poured  out  tears  and  prayei's,  and  held  comtuunioti  with  them,  and 
meditated  his  own  work,  and  had  communion  with  the  Father,  until 
the  place  itself  was  to  him  as  the  gate  of  heaven. 

And  now,  as  his  last  trial  was  comings  and  the  darkness  was  al- 
ready lowering  upon  the  horizon  of  the  new  day,  he  came  back  to  this 
place  of  experience.  He  did  not  permit  himself  to  be  arrested  among 
the  vulgar  in  the  street,  who  would  deride  the  scene.  Nor  would  he 
try  the  hearts  of  his  friends  in  Bethany  with  terror  and  alarm  by  being 
arrested  in  their  sacred  dwelling.  He  came  back  to  his  own  haunt  ; 
to  the  place  whither  he  had  been  accustomed  to  resort.  And  there,  he 
went  through  his  last  inward  trial,  and  passed  also,  through  the  scenes 
of  his  trial  and  arrest.  He  knew  the  coming  hour ;  and  he  took  with 
him  Peter,  James  and  John,  to  watch  with  him. 

Now,  these  w  ere  the  three  disciples  that  had  the  deepest  aflfection, 
and  the  most  power  of  expressing  sympathy.  For,  although  Peter  was 
impetuous,  he  was  just  as  impetuous  in  afiection  as  in  conduct.  James 
and  John,  brothers,  possessed  largely  the  same  nature — John  the  deep- 
est; but  in  early  life  James  is  represented  to  have  been  the  most  meek 
and  sweet-minded.  And  these  three,  best  adapted  to  express  sympathy, 
Christ  selected  to  be  the  witnesses  of  his  last  experience. 

But  why  should  they  watch  with  him  ? — for  he  said,  "  Tarry  here 
and  watch  while  I  go  yonder  and  pray."  To  watch  was  to  keep  awake, 
simply.  What  good  could  they  do?  They  could  nut  avert  that  in- 
ward trial,  the  shadow  of  which  was  already  coming  upon  him.  For, 
as  astronomers  know  when  none  others  think  of  it,  that  travelling 
through  the  heavens  the  vast  shadow  is  progressing  toward  the  sun 


WATcnma  with  cueist.  189 

which  ere  long  shall  clothe  it  and  hide  it,  so  Christ  knew  that  the  great 
darkness   which   was   to   overwhelm   him   was    approaching.      And 
he  went   to   this   place   on   purpose,    and   carried   thither   the   most 
sympathetic   of  his   disciples,    and   set   them    down   while   he   went 
on  beyond,  and  said  to  them,      "  Now  watch,  for  I  go  yonder  to 
pray."     Yet,  what  could  they  do  ?     They  did  not  even  know  what 
was  coming.      And  if  they  had  been  ever  so  vigilant  they  could  not 
have  anticipated  it ;   or,   if  they  had,  they  could  not  have  averted 
that  great  shadow  which  was  coming  upon  him.     They  could  not 
even  enter  into  his  sorrow  when  it  did  come.     Had  they  been  by 
his  side,  his  groans  would  have  seemed  to  them  without  interpreta- 
tive meaning.      Neither,  had  they  known,  could  they  have  consoled 
him.     His  trouble  was  beyond  theh"  depth.     What  could  they  do? 
What  can  a  little  child  do,  that  looks  up  into  the  face  of  the  mother, 
and  sees  her  tears  dropping  one  by  one,  and  knows  not  what  ails  her, 
and  still  less  knows  how  to  comfort  her,  and  can  only  once  in  a  while 
climp  up  into  her  lap  and  say,     "  Don't  cry,  mother."      Were  the  dis- 
ciples any  stronger  than  that  ?     And  could  they  comfort  Christ  any 
more  than  in  that  blind  way  in  which  children's  sympathy  comforts 
parents — or  sometimes  heightens  then*  sorrow?     Since  to  watch  with 
Christ  could  not  have  been  to  give  him  strength  ;  nor  to  interpret  any- 
thing to  liim ;  nor  to  enter  freely  and  fully  into  his  feelings,  it  could 
only  be  this,  that  the  heart  of  Jesus  in  his  great  trial  would  be  com- 
forted if  those  whom  he  loved  and  who  loved  him  were  present  with 
him,  and  were  in  sympathy  with  him.     That  is  it.  The  nature  of  God 
is,  to  need  love.     The  sun  does  not  need  shining  on  it.  All  the  shining 
that  there  is  comes  out  of  itself.    But  so  it  is  not  with  our  God.     For, 
while  he  doth  pour  forth  tides  of  affection,  while  he  has  all  heart-power, 
while  he  is  the  life  of  heaven,  and  is  guiding  the  ages  toward  the  bet- 
ter life  of  love,  yet  in  his  own  nature,  infinite  and  exalted,  he  does  need 
to  be  loved  back  again.     It  is  a  hunger  that  is  stronger  in  the  divine 
heart  than  it  is  in  any  human  heart.     We  are  but  new  scholars  in  the 
school  of  love.     We  know  how  we  need  it.     We  know  that  life  itsell 
seems  disbranched,  and  that  all  growths  seem  withered,  without  the 
cherishing  atmosphere  of  affection.      And  how,  as  we  go  on  in  life, 
more  and  more  we  need  it!    We  hardly  untwine  the  cord  of  love  to  see 
how  many  threads  there  are  that  go  to  make  it  up,  and  how  every  thread 
if  again  untwined  is  itself  made  up  of  an  infinite  number  of  fibers.  We 
are  fed  upon  love.     Even  the  rudest  man  must  have  his    "  friend,"  as 
he  is  wont  to  call  him.      But  as  we  go  up  in  virtue,  as  we  go  up  in 
intelligence,  and  as  we  go  on  in  life,  it  is  the  affection  wl)ich  we  reflect, 
one  upon  another,  that  makes  life  rich ;  and  to  the  human  heart  noth- 
ing is  so  grateful  as  the  kindness  of  another.     When  a  man  is  wai> 


190  WATCHING  WITH  CHRIST. 

derin<T  abroad,  when  he  is  in  exile  and  in  disgrace,  when  he  is  cut  off 
from  other  men's  smiles  and  confidence,  nothing  is  keener  than  the  suf. 
fering  of  heart-hunger  for  affection  which  he  experiences. 

Where  did  we  get  that  necessity?  What  is  it  in  us  but  the  faint 
reflection  of  that  love  of  God  which  hungers  for  love  out  of  the  depths 
of  eternit}' ;  and  which  creates,  and  will  go  on  forever  and  forever 
creating  beings  competent  to  love,  and  building  them  up  into  a  higher 
statui'e  of  experience,  that  they  may  be  able  to  love,  and  that  that 
desire  of  affection  which  God  has  may  be  satisfied  in  the  influx  and  in 
the  vast  accumulations  of  trust  and  confidence  and  affection  which 
He  receives  from  all  his  children. 

This  example  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  a  mere  inflection  of  that 
which  is  infinite  in  the  heavens.  He,  when  he  went  into  the  sad 
scene  in  Gethsemane,  returned  to  the  place  endeared  to  him  by  a 
thousand  tender  associations.  He,  when  he  went  to  suffer,  selected  the 
three  disciples  which  had  the  most  adaptation  to  sympathy  and  affec- 
tion. And  when  they  went  with  liim,  though  they  could  not  see  what 
ailed  him,  nor  give  him  strength,  nor  in  any  way  help  him,  except  by 
being  there,  and  being  in  sympathy  with  him,  that  was  enough.  He 
wanted  that ;  and  so  he  took  the  three  loving  disciples  out  of  the  band 
and  set  them  near  to  him,  and  said,  "  Be  with  me  while  I  suffer  (for 
that,  I  think,  is  the  interpretation  that  we  may  freely  give  to  it) ;  stahd 
by  me  ;  feel  for  me  ;  let  me  see  you  ;  let  me  know  that  you  are  here  ; 
watch  with  me  while  I  go  yonder  to  sorrow  and  to  pray." 

What  these  sufferings  were,  it  is  hardly  necessary  now  that  we 
should  say.  One  thing  is  very  manifest  to  me,  all  the  way  through 
the  last  scenes  of  our  Saviour's  life,  and  even  when  he  was  on  the  cross 
— namely,  that  the  central  element  of  suffering  consisted  in  a  feeling 
of  loneliness.  Not  simply  of  loneliness,  but  of  exile ;  and  not  of  exile 
alone,  but  of  banishment ;  and  not  of  banishment  alone,  but  of  ab- 
solute desertion.  It  seems  to  me  that  in  the  mind  of  Christ  there  arose 
this  impression :  that  he  was  cast  forth  from  the  universe.  With  all 
that  vast  nature,  with  all  those  depths  unfathomable  of  affection,  he 
felt  himself  to  be  a  wreck  on  the  shore  of  time.  And  his  uttei-ance  on 
the  cross  seems  to  me  typical  of  the  whole  experience  which  preceded 
it — "  My  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me  ?"  He  was  alone  as  one 
that  would  never  return  again.  And  to  such  a  heart  as  that — a  heart 
that  loved  and  must  be  loved — the  sense  of  being  utteily  and  forever 
an  outcast,  even  if  it  was  a  divine  illusion — a  bandage,  as  it  were,  put 
over  his  eyes  for  the  purpose  of  trial  and  afiiiction — while  it  lasted 
was  a  suffering  as  great  as  the  human  heart  probably  can  bear,  or  as 
we  can  conceive  of  And  this  I  think  to  have  been  the  feeling  which 
underlaid  the  suffering  of  Christ :  that  he  was  cut  off  from  men,  and 
cut  off  fi'om  angels,  and  cut  off,  finally,  from  God- 


WATCHING  WITH  CHRIST.  191 

But  in  that  hour,  when  his  loneliness  was  upon  him,  as  he  drew 
near  to  the  great  bank  of  storm  and  darkness  that  lay  before ;  as 
he  began  to  wrestle  with  this  deep  inward  distress — in  that  hour  he 
came  back  to  his  disciples,  whom  he  would  fain  have  had  stand  at  the 
portal  of  his  suffering  with  him,  and  found  them  asleep.  And  it  was 
not  a  chiding,  though  it  was  disappointment,  it  was  the  voice  of  love, 
when  he  spoke,  and  said,  "  Could  ye  not  watch  with  me  one  hour  f 
Let  me  read  the  who  le  scene: 

"  And  he  took  with  him  Peter,  and  the  two  sons  of  Zebedee  [James  and 
John],  and  began  to  be  sorrowful  and  very  Iieavy.  Then  saith  he  unto  them. 
My  soul  is  exceeding  sorrowful,  even  unto  death.  Tarry  ye  heie  [that  is, 
stay  by  me],  and  watch  with  me." 

He  could  not  bear  to  be  alone  in  that  minute,  and  he  begged  hia 
own  disciples,  as  one  who,  suffering,  says,  "  Mother,  take  hold  of  my 
hand ;  hold  me,"  that  the  very  touch  may  convey  more  strongly  the 
sense  of  presence. 

"  And  he  went  a  little  further  [that  is,  he  went  away  a  little  beyond  them], 
and  fell  on  his  face,  and  prayed,  saying,  O  my  Father,  if  it  be  possible,  let 
this  cup  pass  from  me;  nevertheless,  not  as  I  will,  but  as  Thou  wilt." 

And  so  that  scene  rounded  itself  up,  and  he  went  back  to  them 
again. 

"  He  cometh  unto  the  disciples,  and  found  them  asleep,  and  saith  unto 
Peter,  What!  could  ye  not  watch  with  me  one  hour?" 
Then,  however,  thinking,  in  a  moment  he  said, 

"  The  spirit  indeed  is  willing,  but  the  flesh  is  weak." 
He  had  compassion  on  them,  and  made  their  excuses  for  them. 

"He  went  away  again  the  second  time,  and  prayed,  saying,  O  my  Father, 
if  this  cup  may  not  pass  away  from  me  except  I  drink  it,  thy  will  be  done. 
And  he  came  and  found  them  asleep  again ;  fcr  their  eyes  were  heavy.  And 
he  left  them  and  went  away  again  the  third  time,  saying  the  same  words." 

And  so,  after  all,  though  he  longed  for  their  consolation,  he  had 
none  of  it.  We  are  not  to  blame  them,  because  the  scenes  which  thev 
had  been  going  through  were  such  as  had  utterly  exhausted  them ; 
and  it  was  not  in  their  nature  to  bear  up  under  those  circumstances, 
and  keep  awake ;  so  the  Master  recognized  their  weakness,  and  with 
sweet  excuse  he  allayed  those  feelings  of  regret  which  his  words  excited 
in  their  bosom. 

I  shall  not  follow  this  history  further,  except  to  develop  this  single 
fact — the  need  which  our  God  has  of  our  affection,  and  our  sympathy, 
and  our  presence  with  him.  I  know  not  how  it  is  with  you,  but  it 
is  just  this  that  makes  me  love  God.  It  is  just  this  need  of  being 
loved  in  God,  and  just  this  sense  of  loneliness  without  it,  that  calls  forth 
ray  affection  for  him.  Power  may  be  venerable,  and  wisdom  may  be 
admirable ;  but  only  affection  is  lovable.  And  if  there  be  proclaimed 
a  Jehovah  higher  and  broader  in  power  than  any  other ;  if  his  nature 
be  made  radiant;  if  he  has  all  the  elements  in  which  philosophy  re- 


192  WATCHING  WITH  CHRIST. 

joice?,  and  in  wliich  creative  and  conservative  power  rejoices,  that  does 
not  make  him  one  whom  I  can  love,  and  therefore  serve  by  love.  But 
the  moment  that  I  perceive,  in  looking  upon  God,  that  nature  out  of 
which  sprang  fatherhood  to  men,  out  of  which  motherhood  came,  and 
out  of  which  came  companionship  ;  the  moment  I  look  unto  the  divine 
nature  and  see,  not  grizzly  justice,  stern  and  remorseless,  not  crushing 
power,  vindictive,  or  victorious  even,  but  of  depths  and  rounds  and 
royalties  of  affection,  then  in  looking  upon  life  I  am  all  the  while,  and 
on  every  side,  seeing  suggestions  of  the  divine  nature.  As  one, 
familiar  with  the  sonatas  and  the  symphonies  of  Beethoven,  while 
passing  along  the  street  in  summer,  gets  from  out  of  the  open  window 
a  snatch  of  a  song,  or  of  a  piece  that  is  being  played,  catching  a 
strain  here  and  another  there,  and  says  to  himself,  "x\h,  that  is  Beeth- 
oven ;  I  recognize  that ;  it  is  from  such  and  such  a  movement  of  the 
Pastoral," — or  whatever  it  may  be ;  so  men  in  lite  catch  strains  ot 
God  in  the  mother's  disinterested  and  self-denying  love  ;  in  the  lover's 
glow ;  in  the  little  child's  innocent  affections.  Where  did  this  thing 
come  from  ?  No  plant  ever  brought  out  such  fruit  as  this.  Nature, 
dumb  and  blind,  with  her  lizards,  and  stones,  and  thousand  accumula- 
tions of  matter,  never  thought  anything  like  that.  This  and  that  har- 
mony of  light,  the  few  hints  which  we  see  here  and  there — these  have 
been  sprinkled  into  life,  di'opping  from  above.  And  there  is  a  fountain 
where  exist  elements  and  attributes  of  which  these  are  but  the  sou- 
venirs. And  to  me  they  all  point  back  to  something  which  we  have 
not  seen.  As  birds,  when  after  moulting  they  begin  to  sing,  break 
down  in  mid-song,  and  give  only  a  snatch  here  and  a  snatch  there  of 
the  fall  volume  of  their  summer  strains ;  so  these  hints,  these  little 
tinkling  notes  of  love  on  earth,  beautiful  as  they  are  in  themselves,  are 
not  perfect,  and  are  not  understood  until  we  trace  them  back,  and  feel 
that  there  is  above,  somewhere,  One  whose  nature  epitomizes  all  these 
things. 

Go  and  look  on  the  south  side  of  the  Highlands.  You  shall  see 
that,  detached  from  the  rocks  there,  and  lying  in  a  long  trail,  for  miles 
and  miles,  are  blocks  of  syenite,  or  of  trap,  or  of  granite,  as  the  case 
may  be.  And  there  is  many  a  block  which,  if  you  choose,  you  can 
trace  back  to  the  very  spot  where  the  ice  pried  it  out,  or  from  which 
the  flood  or  the  iceberg  drifted  it  along  the  mountain  side.  Now,  as  it 
is  with  those  blocks  of  stone,  so  it  is  with  these  scattered  elements  and 
traits  that  have  drifted  out,  as  it  were,  from  the  mountain  of  God,  and 
sweetened  the  household,  and  refined  civilized  life.  They  are,  after  all, 
but  the  outflowing,  the  drift,  as  it  were,  of  the  great  divine  Soul  in  this 
world.  And  taking  these  things  as  suggestions,  and  following  them 
back  agnin,  we  come  to  that  central  conception  of  divine  love  which 


WATcnma  with  cnrjsT.  193 

was  manifested  in  Christ :  not  then  created  for  hira  ;  not  then  created 
for  the  first  time ;  not  then  made  manifest  as  it  is  beyond,  and  as  it 
will  be  still  more  significantly  in  ages  to  come ;  but  shown  under  those 
circumstances  and  conditions  which  were  best  fitted  to  interpret  it  to 
us  in  the  state  that  we  were  in.  And  we  come  back  to  the  manifesta- 
tions of  the  love  of  God  with  this  predominant  feeling :  "  I  can  love 
Love.  I  can  love  if  God  represent  all  that  is  represented,  and  more 
than  is  represented,  in  the  tenderest  relations  among  men;  in  the  deep- 
est afiections  ;  in  the  sweetest  experiences.  I  can  love,  if  God  be  not 
some  great  abstraction.  If  he  be  not  some  mere  philosopher's  circle 
swept  coldly  on  the  background  of  thought ;  if  he  be  vital ;  if  he  be  inef- 
fably quick,  full  of  fiery  feeling ;  and  if  that  feeling  is  tempered  around 
about  the  tropic  of  love,  that  is  One  whom  I  can  give  my  heart  to ; 
One  whom  I  can  give  my  allegiance  to ;  One  whom  I  can  follow,  and 
follow  forever. 

Yet,  that  he  should  in  any  way  need  me,  I  cannot  understand. 
That  I  need  him  I  can  well  understand  ;  but  that  there  should  be  that 
necessity  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  by  which  he  should  say  to  me, 
"  Watch  with  me  ;"  that  there  should  be  an  exigency  in  which  he 
should  feel,  even  in  his  earthly  career,  the  need  ot  a  human  heart — that 
masters  wonder.  That  I  cannot  understand.  It  is  a  marvel,  if  it  be 
true — and  blessed  be  God,  it  is  true — that  while  we  can  do  nothing  to 
the  divine  stature,  and  while  we  can  do  nothing  to  the  divine  wisdom, 
it  is  in  the  power  of  a  heart  that  kn^ows  how  to  love,  to  do  much  for 
the  divine  happiness.  For  we  are  not  to  say  that  God  is  perfect  in  the 
sense  that  he  can  never  feel  any  more.  That  is  carrying  philosophy  to 
insanity.  Every  heart  that  loves  God,  makes  him  experience  a  divine 
gladness.  Every  soul  that  lifts  itself  up  into  the  presence  of  God  with 
adoration  of  love,  makes  him  happier.  And  I  should  not  believe  in  a 
God  who  could  be  unloved  by  all  the  realms  above,  and  all  the  realms 
below,  and  yet  be  just  as  happy  without  being  loved  as  with.  No,  the 
secret  force  of  the  ages  is  this  yearning  of  God  for  men.  It  is  this  in- 
cessant working  in  them.  It  is  this  power,  this  germinating  element, 
that  is  raising  men  up  into  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  greater  puritv, 
into  nobler  endowments  of  heart,  and  preparing  them  for  better  con> 
panionship  M'hen  he  shall  gather  them  and  bring  them  into  his  own 
immediate  presence  in  heaven. 

And  now,  further,  is  there  not  a  relationship  of  this  scene  to  our  re- 
lations in  this  life,  and  to  our  experiences  ?  Is  Christ  still  upon  earth 
in  any  such  sense  that  it  may  be  said  that  we  are  watching  with  him 
here  ? 

I  remark,  that  Christ's  life  is  going  on  in  this  world ;  that  it  is  do- 
veloping  here,  I  had  almost  said  in  some  respects  more  wonderfully 


194  WATCHINO  WIJH  CHRIST. 

than  in  heaven  itself.  In  other  words,  the  next  representation  is,  that 
Christ  has  mingled  his  spirit  with  the  hearts  of  the  race  ;  that  by  hig 
life  and  example  he  is  teaching  men.  And,  above  all,  by  his  spir- 
itual influences,  Christ  is  germinating  in  the  race  his  own  nature,  and 
is  bound  to  carry  the  race  above  its  animal  conditions,  and  into  the 
transcendent  sphere  where  he  himself  is.  He  will  reap  himself,  sowing 
now  himself  So  that  his  life  is  in  myriads  of  souls  in  this  world.  In 
every  soul  that  is  feeling  its  way  out  from  the  lower  toward  the  higher; 
in  every  soul  that  is  obeying,  in  the  slightest  degree,  the  aspiration  that 
tends  to  purity,  and  to  truth,  and  to  right,  and  to  justice ;  in  every 
soul  that  is  even  hating  evil  that  it  does  not  avoid,  striving  against  it — • 
in  every  such  soul  the  motive-power  is  Christ.  It  is  the  life  of  God  that 
is  the  leaven  which  is  leavening  that  soul.  This  is  going  on  in  myriads 
of  hearts ;  and  not  simply  in  those  that  are  gathered  into  the  churches 
— though  they  grow  faster  and  ripen  better  there  than  elsewhere. 
Churches  are  gardens  with  walls  that  break  the  wind,  and  keep  in  the 
sun,  and  in  every  way  make  conditions  favorable  for  quicker  and  riper 
growth.  But  outside  of  the  walls,  where  the  wind  sweeps  in  the  high- 
way, there  are  many  shrubs,  and  some  flowers,  and  not  a  few  fruits. 
And  these,  too,  belong  to  the  master,  though  they  are  in  untoward  cir- 
cumstances. The  life  of  Christ  is  going  on  in  the  church,  and  outside 
of  the  church,  in  those  who  scarcely  know  what  it  is  that  is  developing 
them.  There  is  a  process  of  evolution  going  on  in  men.  It  is  Christ 
in  us  the  hope  of  glory — or  the  premonition  of  the  hope.  He  is  pre- 
sent wherever  there  is  sufiering  in  this  world,  and  wherever  there  is 
sorrow.  For  he  is  the  One  who  came  to  destroy  sin,  and  him  Avho  is 
the  power  of  sin — the  devil.  He  came  to  destroy  misrule,  and  all  mis- 
take, and  to  banish  sorrow  from  the  globe.  And  where  there  is,  iii  all 
the  earth,  the  sigh,  the  groan,  the  heart-sickness  from  hope  deferred, 
there  Christ  is. 

This  identification  of  the  Saviour  with  the  race  is  one  of  the  solemn- 
est  and  most  striking  of  all  his  teachmgs.  For  he  represents  himself 
as  sitting  in  judgment,  and  bringing  before  him  two  classes  of  men,  one 
of  whom  he  blesses,  saying,  "  I  was  sick,  and  in  prison,  and  a  stranger, 
and  ye  visited  me,  and  comforted  me,  and  took  me  in,  and  fed  me 
when  hungry,  and  gave  me  drink  when  thirsty,  and  clothed  me  when 
I  was  naked."  And  they,  in  astonishment,  ask,  "  Why,  when  did 
this  happen  ?"  And  he  says,  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one 
of  the  least  of  these  my  disciples,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me." 

And  on  the  other  hand,  there  come  those  before  him  whom  he  re- 
proaches, saying,  "  Ye  did  not  visit  me,  nor  feed  me,  nor  give  me 
drink,  nor  clothe  me,  nor  cheer  me."  And  they  say,  "  When  did  we  see 
thee  in  exigencies,  and  did  not  succor  thee  ?"      And  he  replies,  "  Inas- 


WATGEINQ  WITH  CHRIST.  195 

mucli  as  ye  did  it  not  unto  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  did  it  not 
unto  me."  In  other  words,  he  says,  "I  identify  myself  with  the  great 
race  of  men  ;  and  any  kindness  that  ye  bestow  on  them  is  bestowed  on 
me,  because  they  and  I  are  one ;  and  any  neglect  or  cruelty  that  you 
inflict  on  ihem  you  inflict  upon  me,  because  they  and  I  are  one." 

He,  then,  who  strikes  his  fellow  man,  strikes  his  Saviour ;  and  he 
who  crowns  his  fellow  man,  crowns  his  Saviour,  So  that  he  who,  from 
the  divine  feeling  of  kindness  and  philanthropy  and  true  love,  does 
good  to  any  human  creature,  may  be  sure  that  it  goes  through  and 
reaches  Him  who  is  identified  with  that  struggling  creature.  And  he 
who  by  selfishness,  or  pride,  or  cruelty,  harms  the  least  of  God's  chil- 
dren on  earth,  may  be  sure  that  the  spear-point  pierces  not  alone  the 
sufiering  human  heart,  but  that  great  Heart  whose  children  we  are. 

Christ,  then,  is  still  in  all  those  who  are  striving  upward ;  in  all 
those  who  are  living  a  life  of  aspiration.  He  is  present  wherever  on 
earth  there  is  suffering  and  sorrow. 

Men  are  accustomed,  in  great  revolutions,  in  such  tempestuous 
times  as  those  which  we  now  see  in  Europe,  to  say  that  the  devil  is 
abroad,  and  that  the  works  of  darkness  are  over  all  the  earth.  Doubt- 
less this  is  true.  But  Christ  is  never  so  near  to  men  as  when  it 
would  seem  that  the  kingdom  of  darkness  was  triumphant ;  as  when 
the  battle-field  is  an  Aceldama ;  as  when  villages  are  in  torments  ;  as 
when  whole  wide  reaches  of  country  are  desolated;  as  when  all  the 
sorrow  that  can  be  felt  by  the  human  heart  is  poured  out  in  over- 
measure  from  day  to  day.  And  though  the  voice  of  Christ  is  not 
heard,  and  bis  form  is  not  seen,  there  is  patience,  and  there  are  in- 
spirations of  hope,  and  there  is  courage  to  die — or,  more  than  that, 
often,  courage  to  live.  The  sustaining  and  upholding  Christ  is  not 
gone  from  the  world  because  we  do  not  see  him.  He  still  walks, 
though  not  in  Jerusalem  alone.  He  still  teaches,  though  no  longer  by 
audible  words.  He  still  inspires,  although  there  be  no  day  of  Pente- 
cost again.  And  wherever  men  are  struggling,  and  striving,  and  suf- 
fering, be  sure  that  the  life  of  Christ  is  there.  For  he  does  not  wrap 
himself  up  in  his  heavenly  home  and  look  out  of  the  window,  only, 
upon  this  far-off  earth.     He  lives  in  nature. 

Wherevei-,  then,  in  all  the  earth,  there  are  those  who  need  guid- 
ance ;  wherever  there  are  those  who  need  instruction  ;  wherever  there 
are  those  who  are  seeking  the  upward  way,  and  looking  about  for 
some  one  to  guide  them — there  the  Saviour  is  with  them. 

He,  then,  is  watching  Mith  Christ,  if  these  be  truths,  who  watches 
with  the  Saviour  in  his  earthly  ministrations.  All  who  go  down  in 
•their  own  personal  experiences  into  deep  places ;  all  who  become  famil' 
iar  Avith  sorrow  ;  all  who   sit  in  darkness ;  all  who  come,  as  he  did,  as 


196  WA TOEING  WITH  CUBIST. 

it  were  to  the  very  foundations  of  their  hope  and  of  theii*  being,  and 
are  obliged  then  and  there  to  do  as  Christ  did — look  up  to  the  loving 
Father  for  help — all  such,  if  they  be  faithful,  if  their  trust  does  not 
yield,  if  they  grasp  firmly  that  anchor  which  is  sure  and  steadfast, 
and  hold  on  through  the  night  and  through  the  storm,  are  watchers 
with  Christ.  A  man  can  watch  with  Christ  in  his  own  experiences,  as 
well  as  in  the  experiences  of  others.  There  is  many  and  many  a  man 
who  is  tempted  more  than  he  is  able  to  bear,  or,  in  a  mighty  wrestle  of 
temptation,  is  well-nigh  overcome.  Nevertheless,  whoever,  under 
such  cu'cumstances,  maintains  his  hold  and  still  cries  out  for  relief; 
whoever,  under  the  various  alternations  and  experiences  of  this  muta- 
ble life,  finds  himself  cast  down  headlong  to  the  ground ;  whoever  finds 
his  cup  filled  to  the  brim  with  bitterness  which  he  cannot  put  away 
from  his  lips,  and  which  his  lips  do  not  dare  to  drink;  whoever  finds 
that  tears  are  his  meat  and  drink,  day  and  night,  and  yet  gives  up  no 
particle  of  hope,  but  stands  in  his  darkness  and  in  his  sufferings,  say- 
ing, "  Jesus  !  Jesus  !  Jesus  !",  still  laying  back  his  head  upon  the 
bosom  of  Christ's  love,  and  saying,  "  Though  he  slay  me,  yet  will  I 
trust  in  him" — whoever  does  these  things  is  watching  with  Christ. 
For  Christ  is  working  in  him.  And  this  is  the  hour  of  Gethsemane  to 
him.     He  is  truly  watching  with  the  Master. 

He  who,  like  Christ,  admits  the  brotherhood  of  men  and  cares 
tenderly  for  all — for  the  tempted ;  for  those  who  are  out  of  the 
way ;  for  those  who  are  sufi'erers,  even  though  they  are  suffering  by 
the  penalty  of  their  own  sin  ;  he  who  looks  upon  men's  sins,  their 
crimes,  their  vices,  and  the  sorrows  which  spring  from  them,  not  in  an 
adjudicatory  spirit,  not  in  the  spirit  of  one  who  measures  by  the  law  of 
justice,  certainly  not  in  the  spirit  of  criticism,  but  as  if  the  offenders 
were  his  own  beloved  brethren,  and  when  he  sees  sorrow  and  suffering 
hides  not  himself  from  it  but  stands  by  it,  and  feels  that  he  has  a  mis- 
sion to  it — he  who  so  stands  by  his  fellowmen  from  day  to  day,  may 
eminently  be  said  to  be  watching  with  Christ. 

Christ  is  now,  not  under  the  olive-tree,  nor  over  against  Jerusalem, 
but  everywhere.  Wherever  one  is  with  the  poor  and  needy — whether 
it  be  upon  the  plantation,  or  in  the  leafy  forest,  or  in  the  lumberman's 
tent,  or  in  the  log-cabin  of  the  frontier,  or  in  the  canal-boat,  or  upon 
the  ship's  deck,  or  in  the  mine,  or  in  the  streets,  or  in  cellars,  or  in  at- 
tics, or  in  haunts  of  vice,  or  in  those  dreadful  chambers  beyond  where 
vice  torments  before  it  slays,  or  in  hospitals,  or  in  jails — there  Christ  is. 

Oh !  how  much  of  life  there  is  that  lies  outside  of  hope !  Oh !  how 
much  of  life  there  is  that  writhes  as  if  it  were  possessed  with  a  devil — 
'as  it  is !  And  how  few  there  are  to  stand  by  the  lost,  the  outcast,  the 
ue;^lcclcd,  the  overthrown,  the  destroyed,  as  Christ  would,  healing,  for 


WATCEINO  WITH  CHRIST.  197 

giving,  comforting,  guiding !  There  is  many  a  chance  where  you 
could  watch  with  Christ ;  but  you  pass  by  it.  It  shocks  your  feelings, 
or  you  have  not  time ;  oi',  more  likely,  you  have  not  the  heart.  And 
yet,  again,  and  again,  and  again,  your  brother  and  mine  has  fallen 
down  in  his  bl6od ;  and  we  have  been  guilty  in  this :  That  we  have 
left  him  unsuccored,  and  uncheered  and  uncomforted,  on  the  cold 
theory,  "  He  brought  it  on  himself ;  he  must  reap  what  he  sowed ;  he 
must  bake  as  he  brewed."     But  so  did  not  Christ. 

Those  who  are  in  the  midst  of  the  glare  and  growth  of  material 
things  in  this  life,  and  identify  themselves,  notwithstanding,  with  the 
interior,  with  the  spiritual,  with  the  religious  affaks  of  men,  may  fitly 
be  said  to  be  watching  with  Christ. 

There  are  those  who  know  that  what  the  eye  sees,  and  the 
hands  handle,  is  but  the  case,  is  but  the  packing ;  and  that  the  reality 
of  things  is  invisible  and  lies  within ;  and  that  the  kingdom  of  God 
comes  not  with  observation.  The  eye  cannot  see,  nor  the  ear  hear, 
nor  the  hand  handle  it.  It  is  the  growth  of  purity.  It  is  the  growth 
of  sweetness.  It  is  the  growth  of  faith.  It  is  the  growth  of  intuitiou . 
It  is  the  prophecy  of  love  in  men's  souls. 

There  be  men  who,  while  they  are  faithful  in  the  outward  relation 
of  life — builders,  bargain-makers,  transactors  of  the  affairs  of  other 
men — have  all  the  time  a  sense  that  the  reality  of  Christ  lies  far  with- 
in or  beneath  these  things.  And  they  are  true  to  this  inward  kingdom 
of  God,  and  to  this  reality  of  Christ,  and  of  things  within.  All 
such  men  are  watchers  with  Christ.  They  stand  by  him  in  those  re- 
spects in  which  he  is  most  intimately  manifested  in  the  affairs  of  this 
life. 

Still  further,  those  especially  who  are  watching  as  Christ  taught 
that  we  should  watch,  are  those  who  watch  for  the  souls  of  men,  and 
not  for  Christ  alone.  Every  mother  who  stands  by  her  children  from 
day  to  day  watching  for  their  unfolding  into  virtue ;  every  father  who 
succors  the  tempted  children  as  they  step  out  into  life ;  every  father 
and  mother  who,  from  day  to  day,  carry  their  children  again  until  they 
are  born  into  Christ ;  every  one  that  looks  upon  the  children  of  his 
friends,  and  goes  in  birth  for  them  ;  every  one  that  ins])ires  the  little 
child  with  upward  knowledge  ;  every  one  that  pities  and  has  com- 
passion upon  the  ignorant  and  upon  those  that  are  out  of  the  way; 
every  one  that  leads  a  young  man  from  worse  to  better  courses ;  every 
man  who,  for  ihe  sake  of  doing  good  to  a  soul,  turns  one  single  sinner 
aside  from  the  evil  that  is  in  him  ;  whoever  goes  after  an  intemperate 
man,  to  cheer  him,  to  comfort  him,  to  wan  him,  and  to  bring  him  back ; 
whoever  goes  to  an  impure  man,  to  bring  him  to  purity,  and  back  to 
God,  the  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  his  soul ;  whoever  goes  to  the  care* 


198  WATCHIITG  WITH  CHRIST. 

less  ;  whoever  builds  up' those  who  are  bcguming  to  be  broken  down  ; 
whoever  believes  in  the  truth,  and  preaches  it ;  whoever,  night  and 
day,  is  going  out  to  seek  and  save  the  lost — every  such  one  ia  in  fel- 
lowship with  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  That  is  his  work.  Through  the 
ages  he  has  been  doing  it,  in  low  and  imperfect  Vays  that  will 
seem  yet  one  day  glorious.  Christ  lives  to  bring  sons  and  daughters 
home  to  glory,  and  whoever  keeps  step  with  him  is  his  companion ; 
and  whoever  goes,  at  some  expense,  whoever  goes  paying  his  own 
warftire  charges,  by  thought,  by  toil,  by  self-denial,  bearing  souls  on- 
ward and  upwai'd,  is  watching  with  Christ. 

Dear  brethren,  do  you  know  that  you  could  not  do  anything  that 
would  touch  my  heart  so  much  as  that  which  you  should  do  to  my 
child  ?  You  might  put  a  fortune  upon  my  shoulders,  and  I  should  be 
grateful ;  but  he  who  helps  my  child  to  begin  his  life  aright  burdens 
me  with  gratitude  a  thousand  times  more.  If  my  child  were  in  peril, 
and  you  should  succor  him  in  a  distant  city,  and  the  tidings  should 
come  home  to  me,  I  could  not  find  words  to  thank  you  for  what  you 
did  for  him.  I  should  be  grateful  if  you  did  it  for  me,  but  not  so  much 
as  if  you  did  it  for  my  child,  because  my  child  is  himself  and  myself 
too  ;  and  my  feelings  for  him  are  more  than  my  feelings  for  myself. 
What  you  do  for  my  child  is  the  deepest  and  truest  service  that  you 
can  render  me. 

And  how  do  you  think  it  is  in  the  bosom  of  your  God  and  your 
Saviour  ?  If  you  take  up  in  your  arms  the  despoiled,  and  the  outcast, 
and  the  lost ;  if  you  wash  them  in  your  tears ;  if  you  are  to  them,  in 
your  small  way,  what  Christ  has  been  to  you  ;  if  you  call  them,  and 
bring  them  back  again  from  wrong  courses ;  and  if  you  are  permitted 
to  stand  in  his  presence  in  the  last  day,  and  say  to  him,  "Here  am  I, 
and  these,"  what  will  be  the  joy  which  you  shall  experience  !  What 
will  be  that  gladness,  what  will  be  that  love,  which  will  roll  forth  from 
the  soul  of  Jesus  to  any  one  of  you  that  watches  with  him  on  earth, 
and  watches  with  him  in  behalf  of  his  little  ones  ! 

I  cannot  come  to  you,  my  Christian  brethren,  to  urge  upon  you  to- 
day the  duty  of  watching  for  souls.  It  is  2l  privilege.  It  is  a  privilege 
which  cannot  be  described.  We  cannot  make  it  known  upon  earth, 
because  we  know  so  little  of  heaven,  and  so  little  of  God.  But  be  sure 
of  one  thing — that  when  God  permits  you  to  be  workers  together  with 
him,  fellow-laborers  with  him  ;  when  he  commands  you  to  count  it  all 
joy  if  you  fall  into  divers  trials,  and  he  says,  "  To  you  it  is  given  also 
to  suffer  with  Christ;"  when  God  gives  you  the  privilege  of  watchiiio- 
companionably  with  him,  of  working  with  him,  nay,  of  being  a  fellow, 
laborer  with  him  in  behalf  of  his  own  children,  do  I  need  to  urge  a  mo- 
tive of  duty,  or  a  motive  of  interest  ?     It  seems  to  me  that  any  one 


WAT  CUING  WITH  CUEIST.  199 

who  aclcr.owldges  himself  redeemed  by  the  blood  of  Christ ;  any  one 
who  remembers  the  bitterness  of  his  own  sin ;  any  one  who  knows  the 
joy  of  his  own  soul ;  any  one  who  ever  felt  in  his  closet  gratitude  un- 
utterable to  Him  who  loved  him,  and  gave  himself 'for  him — it  seems 
to  me  that  any  such  one  will  feel  all  his  thought  and  memory,  and  ev- 
ery impulse  of  his  sanctified  heart,  rising  up  to  spur  him  on  to  fidelity, 
to  labor,  to  work  in  the  kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ,  for  the  days  that  re- 
main. 

Brethren,  our  days  grow  pale.  The  night  itself  is  coming.  Every 
day  is  now  growing  shorter  and  shorter.  The  sun  shines  less  and  less, 
and  the  night  grows  longer  and  longer.  Our  night  is  coming.  And  if 
we  have  anything  to  do  for  Christ,  anything  for  our  children,  anythino* 
for  those  that  are  in  our  employment,  anything  for  our  neighbors,  any- 
thing for  the  poor  and  the  outcast,  we  must  do  it  quickly.  For  you 
soon  will  go.  The  messenger  has  started  for  some  of  you,  and  he  is 
not  long  delaying  for  any.  And  if,  when  you  go  up,  you  shall  have 
done  nothing,  and  you  shall  enter  heaven  so  as  by  fire,  woe,  woe  is  you  ! 
But  who  are  they  that  fill  the  air  and  throng  the  battlements?  They 
are  the  rejoicing  spirits  that  come  to  greet  him  whose  whole  life  has 
been  watching  with  Christ,  and  who  is  coming  up  thither  to  receive  the 
benediction,  "  Enter,  welcome,  good  and  faithful  servant." 

May  the  work  of  your  life  be  the  best  work  of  which  your  life  13 
capable  ;  and  may  the  best  work  of  your  life  be  that  which  you  regis- 
ter on  the  souls  of  those  that  but  for  you  would  have  perished  without 
light,  and  without  knowledge,  and  without  salvation. 


200  WATCHING  WITH  CUEIST. 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMOKT. 

we  thank  thee,  our  Father,  that  thou  hast  created  us  better  than  the 
beasts  which  perish.  For,  though  we  have  all  outward  sense,  and  inherit 
this  material  globe  with  them,  our  souls  blossom  far  above  theirs.  Thou 
hast  given  to  us  a  noble  outgrowth ;  and  that  which  is  within  us  reaches 
up  to  that  which  is  within  thee.  And  we  are  called  thine  own  children.  We 
are  born  of  thee,  and  are  tending  toward  thee,  and  seeking  by  the  whole 
mystery  of  life  to  find  our  way  into  thy  presence.  We  rejoice,  though  as  yet 
we  are  not  permitted  to  see  thee  face  to  face.  Nor  is  there  such  communica- 
tion between  our  souls  and  thine  as  we  have  one  with  another.  Yet  we  re- 
joice in  the  reality  of  the  things  unseen ;  in  the  power  of  the  world  to  come ; 
in  the  glory  of  thy  character;  in  the  faith  of  thine  administration.  What  we 
cannot  see  is  clearly  discerned  by  thee.  And  all  the  wealth  above  our  heads ; 
the  realms  of  rejoicing  spirits ;  the  royalties  of  thine  own  kingdom ;  the 
dear  delights  and  transcendent  joys  which  there  do  flourish  without  dark- 
ness or  winter,  without  storm,  without  tears, — all  these,  our  souls  crave  to 
believe.  Although  they  are  veiled  from  us  sometimes  by  the  power  of  the 
world;  although  they  are  sometimes  hidden  from  our  view,  by  the  dust 
that  rises  from  beneath  our  feet ;  though  at  times  sorrows  overmaster  our 
faith ;  though  excess  of  care,  and  despondency,  and  sickness  of  body,  and 
sickness  of  soul,  do  hide  the  great  and  blessed  truths  above,  and  but  just 
above  us,  yet  there  they  are,  and  thou  by  thy  dear  Spirit  dost  minister  them 
to  us  from  time  to  time.  And  as,  in  days  that  are  stormy,  the  clouds 
do  pftrt  to  let  us  see  the  blue  beyond,  and  we  know  that  not  far  above  the 
storm  is  the  calm  and  the  brightness ;  so,  in  this  life,  m  its  disturbances  and 
troubles,  thou  art  letting  through,  at  times,  the  blessed  light  of  the  serene 
heaven  above  us.  We  know  that  we  have  not  sent  out  our  beloved  into  a 
world  of  uncertainty  and  chance.  Our  children  are  safe  that  have  gone  away 
to  thee.  Our  friends  are  safe  that  have  died  in  the  faith  of  Jesus.  They  walk 
with  him,  and  rejoice  with  him,  mourning  more  for  us,  if  there  were  mourn- 
ing in  heaven,  than  we  for  them  ;  they,  in  the  plentitude  of  their  joy  ;  they, 
in  the  greatness  of  renewed  strength ;  they,  in  the  fulness  of  emancipation 
and  in  the  glory  of  the  heavenly  manhood ;  but  we,  still  stinted  and  care- 
marked,  and  weary  of  shoulder,  that  bear  heavy  burdens.  We  that  despond 
so  easily  and  suffer  so  much, — why  should  we  mourn  the  departed  ?  Why 
should  we  not  mourn  the  living  ?  We  thank  thee  for  their  joy.  We  thank 
thee  that  on  such  days  as  this  heaven  comes  very  near  to  us,  and  renews 
our  assurance,  and  above  all  the  assurance  of  thy  being,  and  thy  presence, 
and  thy  sympathy,  and  thy  love. 

O  grant,  we  beseech  of  thee,  that  we  may  have  something  more  of  that 
joy  which  our  souls  need.  For  as  the  earth  cannot  ripen  its  fruits  and  plants 
without  the  sun,  so  neither  can  we  ripen  in  joy  or  grace  without  the  shining 
of  thy  face  upon  us. 

Grant  unto  us,  this  morning,  then,  dear  Master,  the  tokens  of  thy  presence. 
May  our  heart  hear  thee,  though  our  outward  ear  may  not.  May  it  hear  thee 
calling  us  sons.  And  though  chastisements  may  be  upon  us,  may  we  hear 
thee  saying,  "  Whom  I  love  1  chasten,  and  scourge  every  son  whom  I  re- 
ceive." 

May  we  rejoice,  then,  at  these  strokes  of  love.  May  we  rejoice  at  care.  May 
we  know  how  to  triumph  over  all  temptation.  May  we  know  how  to  bear 
everything  that  in  thy  providence  is  laid  upon  us,  and  fulfill,  if  need  be.  In 
oar  bodies,  the  measure  of  afaiction  which  is  lacking  in  thine.     Grant,  we 


WATCHING  WITH  CHRIST.  201 

pray  thee,  that  we  may  have,  from  day  to  day,  this  sense  of  thy  care,  and  of 
the  great  coming  joy  that  will  be  wrought  out  in  us  by  faith  and  patience 
and  perseverance. 

And  now,  may  we  be  filled  on  the  way,  not  with  sorrow  alone,  but  with 
those  joys  which  are  born  of  sorrow.  And  while  we  sigh,  and  are  sad,  may 
there  spring  to  our  lips  many  and  many  a  song  of  triumph.  May  we  plucU 
beforehand  from  the  branches  that  fruit  which  hath  in  it  eternal  life.  And 
may  we  joy  in  each  other,  and  bear  one  another's  burdens,  and  pray  for 
one  another,  and  forgive  one  another,  and  in  all  things  be  to  each  other  wLat 
the  dear  Jesus  was  to  his  disciples  when  he  companioned  with  them  on  earth. 
May  we  walk  together  bound  by  invisible  bonds,  and  united  by  that  rela- 
tionship which  is  in  thee.  Uphold  us  O  blessed  Saviour, until  the  end  doth 
oome;  and  then,  may  we  find  each  other  in  immortality  and  glory. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  bless  those  in  thy  presence  as  thine  eye 
discerns  them  severally  to  need  thee ;  and  as  thy  providences  are  allotted  ac- 
cording to  some  wise  measin-e  in  thy  will,  so  may  thy  grace  be  allotted  accord- 
ing to  the  dispensations  of  thy  wisdom  and  of  thy  mercy.  Wilt  thou  sustain 
the  feeble ;  wilt  thou  strengthen  the  weak ;  wilt  thou  encourage  the  despond- 
ing ;  wilt  thou  comfort  the  sorrowful ;  wilt  thou  take  away  fear  from  those 
that  are  timid ;  wilt  thou  help  every  one  that  is  conscious  of  his  load  of  care, 
or  trouble,  or  temptation,  or  easily  besetting  sin.  Help,  O  thou  Helper!  every 
such  one. 

And  we  beseech  of  thee,  O  Lord,  that  all  such  may  obtain  mercy  and  help 
in  time  of  need.  If  there  be  any  that  are  afar  off,  crying  as  the  leper  crieci, 
Jesus,  make  them  clean.  H  there  be  any  that  cannot  believe,  and  yet  would, 
and  cry,  "Lord  I  believe,  yet  help  my  unbelief,"  have  compassion  upon 
them.  If  there  be  those  that  mourn  over  their  own  sinfulness,  and  know  not 
how  to  get  rid  of  its  remorse  and  pain,  speak  \1  ords  of  forgiving  love  to  them. 
Say  to  them,  "  Son,  thy  sin  is  forgiven  thee."  And  may  they  have  that  peace 
which  passeth  all  understanding,  in  that  they  are  accepted  of  G  od  in  the  Be- 
loved. 

And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  open  the  hearts  of  thy  servants,  to 
labor  for  those  around  about  them ;  to  speak  more ;  to  pray  more;  to  watch 
more ;  to  instruct  men  more  tenderly  and  earnestly  respecting  things  which 
pertain  to  their  salvation. 

Wilt  thou  revive  thy  work  everywhere.  In  this  church  and  in  all  other 
churches  in  the  city,  wilt  thou  grant  thy  servants  more  power  to  proclaim 
the  truth.  Grant  them  more  fidelity,  and  a  great  deal  more  succ  ss.  May 
they  be  more  and  more  fruitful  from  year  to  year.  K  there  be  any  that  labor 
in  word  and  doctrine,  and  yet  bear  sorrows,and  troubles,  and  despondency, 
wilt  thou  cheer  and  comfort  them,  and  gird  up  their  loins,  that  they  may  not 
faint  by  the  way.  Pity  those  that  sit  in  darkness.  Look  everywhere  through- 
out the  land  unto  the  waste  places. 

Grant  that  schools  may  spring  up  everywhere ;  that  churches  may  be  every 
where  found,  and  that  the  light  of  intelligence  and  the  light  of  truth  may  go 
forth  together,  and  all  parts  of  our  land  be  regenerated. 

Pity  the  nations  of  the  earth.  Spare  them  that  are  cast  down.  Grant 
that  men  may  feel  that  there  has  been  enough  and  more  than  enough  of  war 
and  of  the  shedding  of  blood.  O  grant  that  the  iron  sceptre  may  go  down, 
and  that  the  sceptre  of  peace  may  go  up.  Take  blood  from  out  of  the  ban- 
ners, and  let  the  witness  of  purity  and  of  peace  come  in  instead.  And  grant 
that  ere  long  there  may  be  no  trumpet  sound  in  all  the  earth  except  the  sil- 
ver sound  of  thy  trumpet ;  and  no  banner  but  that  of  Jesus ;  and  no  warfare 
but  that  against  sin. 

Grant  these  things,  O  thou  blessed  God  !  in  the  name  of  Jesus  thy  Son  and 
our  Saviour.  And  to  him,  with  the  Father,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  shall  be 
praises  evermore.    Amen. 


202  WATCHING  WITH  CHRIST. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Fattier,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  help  us  to  be  faithful,  not 
only  to  our  light,  but  to  thee.  Bring  near  to  us  a  sweet  conception  of  thy 
being,  and  of  thy  nature,  and  of  thy  sympathy,  and  of  thy  tenderness,  and 
of  thy  love,  and  of  the  hunger  to  be  loved  that  is  in  thee.  And  may  our 
hearts  be  drawn  out  toward  thine.  Inseparably  may  we  be  united  to  thee. 
May  nothing  separate  us  from  thee.  All  our  senses  shall  not  separate  us  from 
thee.  The  /  are  the  reason  why  we  need  thee  above  everything  else.  Our 
temptations  shall  not  separate  us  from  thee.  They  are  themselves  the  very 
causes  why  we  should  cling  tighter  to  thee.  Nothing  present,  nothing  to 
come,  neither  height  nor  depth,  shall  separate  us  from  the  love  of  G-od  which 
is  in  Christ  Jesus.  O  grant  that  we  may  be  ashamed  to  take  this  store  and 
treasure  of  love  selflshly.  Is  there  nothing  for  us  to  do  ?  Can  we  not  requite 
it?  If  a  child  brings  us  a  flower  we  think  of  something  to  give  back  again. 
If  a  friond  sgeaks  a  kindly  word,  and  we  hear  of  it,  how  kindly  are  tlie 
thoughts  with  which  we  reward  that  friend.  If  they  are  united  to  us  who 
have  served  us  in  this  life,  shall  we  not  think  of  something  to  give  tl:em  ? 
And  shall  we  not  think  of  some  love  to  requite  them  ?  O  gyant  that  we  may 
not  stand  as  the  heath  in  the  desert,  overflowed  with  the  light  of  summer 
and  its  warmth,  and  yet  bearing  nothing, 

Grant,  we  beseech  of  thee,  that  the  love  of  God  may  work  love  in  us,  and 
that  the  example  of  Christ  may  work  more  a  sympathetic  sorrow  in  us.  May 
we  look  into  our  households,  and  may  we  begin  to  spur  ourselves  on.  May 
every  one  feel  that  he  lias  the  sacred  work  of  God  to  do.  May  thy  servants 
begin  to  pray  as  they  have  not  prayed  for  a  long  time.  May  they  ba  more 
tender-hearted.  May  they  take  hold  of  each  other's  hands ;  and  may  they 
sink  all  differences ;  and  may  the  love  that  is  in  Christ  bring  new  aght  and 
new  love  to  every  one  of  us.  And  may  we  begin  a  nobler  pilgrimage,  a  no- 
bler march,  a  greater  conflict,  a  truer  work.  And  wilt  thou,  O  Spirit !  guide 
it  and  consummate  it. 

And  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  everlast- 
ing.   Amen. 


XII. 

Tendencies  of  American  Process. 


THE   TENDENCIES 


OP 


AMERICAN  PROGRESS 


It  is  well  for  us  to  pause,  in  our  career,  to  consider  whither  out 
national  life  is  tending.  For  we  are  too  apt  to  become  so  engrossed 
in  our  private  affairs  as  to  have  but  a  dim  and  feeble  sense  of  our  rela- 
tions to  the  life  of  the  whole  community.  Or,  if  we  cast  a  glance  upon 
the  tendencies  of  our  times,  it  is  apt  to  be  superficial — a  judgment 
which  follows  rather  our  disposition  than  our  reason.  To  the  hopeful, 
things  are  always  bright ;  and  they  are  always  dark  to  the  cautious. 
Prosperous  men  think  the  country  is  doing  well ;  and  the  unfortunate 
see  the  signs  of  impending  mischief  and  of  quick-coming  ruin  on  every 
hand.  Men  are  apt  to  judge  of  the  drift  of  things  by  the  impressions 
made  upon  them  by  the  things  which  are  nearest,  or  by  the  welfare  of 
the  special  cause  to  which  they  are  giving  their  time  and  zeal.  If 
that  zone  of  life  and  force  which  is  in  contact  with  them  is  stormy, 
they  feel  that  it  is  stormy  away  to  the  horizon,  though  but  just  a  step 
beyond  it  may  be  tranquil ;  and  if  the  affiiirs  in  which  men  have  em- 
barked their  chief  zeal  and  their  affections  are  withstood,  and  are  de- 
clining, they  are  apt  to  think  that  the  whole  work  of  God  in  the  world 
is  weary  and  slow-paced. 

While,  then,  it  is  proper  that  we  should  recognize  superficial  pros- 
perity, and  personal  prosperity,  and  all  forms  of  experience  from  the 
personal  stand-point,  we  are  far  more  earnest  to  inquire  whether  under 
the  surface  the  tendency  of  things  is  onward  and  upward,  or  level,  or 
working  downward.  But  in  order  to  this  we  must  have  some  deter- 
minate rule  or  measure.  We  must  not  judge  by  the  eye,  nor  by  our 
senses,  nor  by  a  transient  criterion. 

The  most  obvious,  and  historically  the  first,  condition  of  prosperity 
in  any  community  is  physical  thrift,  material  wealth ;  and  surely  there 
can  be  no  national  life  of  any  great  worth  without  that.  For  there 
must  be  prosperity  in  material  things  if  there  is  to  be  prosperity  in 
moral  things  in  the  last  estate.     Still,  a  nation  may  be  prospered  in 

TnusDAT  Morning,  Not.  24, 1870.   Lesson  :  ISA,  Lx.Hymns  (Plymouth  Collection) :  Noa- 
1,008, 1,004. 


204  THE  TENDENCIES  OF 

the  field,  and  at  the  loom,  and  on  the  ship,  and  on  the  shore,  and  yet 
be  deoraded  and  declining.  For  material  welfare,  although  it  be  an 
indispensable  element  of  national  prosperity,  is  the  lowest,  and  is  to 
be  subordinated  to  all  others.  Above  it  is  the  social  and  civil  develop- 
ment of  a  nation.  Far  superior  in  importance  to  mere  physical  wealth 
is  the  wealth  which  comes  from  institutions,  from  laws,  from  the  con- 
duct of  the  people,  and  from  the  whole  course  of  civilized  society.  But 
yet  higher  than  this  is  moral  and  spiritual  good.  For  without  faith 
civilization  itself  soon  becomes  tame  and  powerless. 

The  highest  p-osperity,  then,  is  associated  with  spiritual  good. 
Next  to  that  is  social ;  and  lowest  of  all  is  material.  And  in  this  order 
we  are  to  judge  of  prosperity.  That  material  good  is  prosperous  which 
is  working  toward  the  social  and  toward  the  spiritual.  That  social  and 
civil  condition  of  society  is  wholesome  which  recognizes  the  higher 
law  of  religious  development. 

Now,  in  looking  upon  our  national  condition  it  is  not  enough  that 
we  see  unbounded  prosperity  on  the  farm,  at  the  forge,  in  the  shop : 
we  must  ask  whether  this  prosperity  lies  in  the  line  of  intelligence,  of 
real  virtue ;  whether  it  guides  itself  by  moral  principle. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  looking  upon  the  imperfections  and  positive 
evils  which  attend  the  various  elements  of  national  life,  men  are  not  to 
be  discoui'aged  because  there  is  much  in  them  that  is  still  evil ;  nor 
because  in  some  places  things  are  going  backward,  like  eddies  upon 
mighty  rivers.  For  this  is  the  law  of  all  progress.  But  are  things, 
on  the  whole,  tending  toward,  or  away  from,  moral  elements  ?  That 
will  determine  the  question  of  prosperity. 

Look,  then,  at  our  own  condition  teritorially.  What  other  nation 
has  such  a  field  for  extension,  such  a  field  for  development,  such  a  field 
for  material  prosperity  ?  Russia  alone,  perhaps,  of  all  nations,  has  a 
territory  as  extensive  as  America.  In  all  except  bulk  though,  how 
difierent  !  Our  climate,  from  the  north  line  to  the  very  gulf,  is  con- 
genial to  industry.  There  is  no  league  in  which  climatic  influences  for- 
bid prosperity;  but  the  Russian  climate  is  too  rigorous.  Through 
perhaps  one  thu-d,  or  one-half — through  vast  spaces  at  any  rate,  it  is 
unfavorable  even  to  life  itself,  and  life  can  never  be  develo^^ed  into 
any  great  degree  of  society -force.  Our  soil,  except  a  central  tract  (and 
that  less  barren  than  men  suppose)  is  cultivatable  throughout.  Theu'S 
is  largely  sterile.  Our  population  is  English-speaking,  and  homo- 
geneous in  ideas,  though  heterogeneous  in  origin.  But  all  this,  a  pro- 
digious condition  of  power  if  other  things  favor,  is  useless, — and,  worse 
than  useless,  will  be  corrupting, — if  there  are  not  other  elements  of 
prosperity  than  merely  that  which  is  given  us,  of  territory. 

Then,  our  people  carry  with  them  everywhere   self  government, 


AMERICAN  PROGRESS.  205 

and  a  genius  for  it.  Partly,  this  is  the  quahty  of  race.  We  spring 
mainly  from  a  stock  in  which  inheres  the  tendency  to  government, 
and  self-government.  And  partly  it  is  a  thing  learned.  Our  people 
have  learned  it  ;  and  government,  therefore,  and  laws,  go  with  every 
colony  just  as  sui-ely  as  yokes  and  harnesses  go  with  their  teams  and 
herds.  Men  never  emigrate  without  carrying  their  household  wealth 
and  the  material  for  employing  the  soil  in  husbandry.  But  tools  and 
implements  are  no  more  necessary  in  their  judgment  than  are  the  in- 
stitutions and  the  customs  which  make  men  societies.  Wherever  you 
throw  a  hundred  Americans,  you  may  be  sure  that  almost  their  firet 
thought  will  be  to  constitute  themselves  into  a  body  politic.  They  do 
it  as  naturally  as  water  comes  together  in  crystals  when  cold  congeals 
it  They  come  by  a  kind  of  elective  affinity  under  laws  and  under  con- 
stitutions. 

Contrast  that  great  and  unfortunate  nation,  France,  with  our  own 
in  this  respect.  Their  self-governing  instinct  seems  never  to  have  been 
developed.  The  tendency  is  feeble,  and  cultivation  has  never  been 
applied  to  it.  How  to  be  governed  they  but  just  know  ;  and  how  to 
govern  themselves,  not  at  all.  But  with  us  this  is  one  of  the  most 
marked  national  featai'es,  the  indispensable  necessity  of  being  governed, 
and  the  indispensable  determination  to  let  nobody  do  it  for  us,  but  to 
do  it  ourselves. 

Our  people,  also,  carry  institutions  which  are  to  moral  force  what 
machinery  is  to  physical  force.  Institutions  are  but  the  condensa- 
tions of  power.  They  are  artificial  persons,  as  it  were,  to  whom  is 
given  an  unweariable  existence — a  life  longer  than  the  life  of  those 
that  made  them.  They  are  the  devices  of  civilization  for  storing  up 
and  preserving  and  fitting  out  moral  things,  and  are  indispensable  to 
the  strength  and  constancy  and  perpetuity  of  communal  life. 

But  all  these  are  but  conditions.  What  now  are  the  general  tend- 
encies of  the  material  prosperity  of  America  which  are  being  devel- 
oped, with  such  a  territory,  with  such  a  people  on  it,  with  such  civic 
advantages  ?  On  the  whole,  are  they  toward  intelligence,  and  morality, 
and  a  higher  spiritual  growth  ? 

1.  The  mass  of  our  working  population,  I  think,  were  never  p 
well  clothed,  so  bountifully  fed  and  so  well  housed,  as  they  a'j 
now ;  and  the  tendency  is  not  backward,  but  forward.  Our  woikino- 
population,  to  the  very  lowest  stage  and  class,  tend  to  more  refine- 
ment in  their  food,  more  taste  in  their  apparel,  and  more  culture 
in  their  dwellings,  year  by  year.  In  other  wordfi,  the  lowest  material 
conditions  are  working  upward,  and  not  dovrnward.  Plainness  of 
apparel,  and  of  circumstances  surrounding,  are  not  signs  and  tokcna 
'jither  of  civil  growth  or  of  Christianity.      The   general  impression 


206  THE  TENDENCIES  OF 

is,  tljat,  as  nations  are  better,  they  will  be  economical.  T  tlilnk, 
on  the  contrary,  they  will  be  profuse,  and  have  the  means  of  being 
so.  The  impression  is  that  they  will  be  unadorned.  I  think  they 
will  be  more  glorious  than  Solomon  was,  in  all  his  apparel.  The 
impression  is  that  the  law  of  simplicity  in  the  sense  of  littleness  of 
having  and  using  characterizes  virtue  and  religion.  Far  from  it.  As 
you  go  toward  the  savage  state,  you  go  away  from  complexity,  from 
multitudinous  power,  down  toward  simplicity,  and  when  you  come 
to  the  lowest  state — to  the  simplicity  of  men  that  wear  skins  and 
leather  apparel,  and  live  in  huts  and  caves — you  come  to  the  fool's 
ideal  of  prosperity.  But  from  that  low  animal  condition  starts  develop- 
ment, and  nations  go  on  opening  their  faculties;  and  every  faculty 
becomes  a  market,  and  demands  supply.  And  the  more  cultui-e  a  man 
has,  the  more  parts  of  his  nature  there  are  which  ask  for  material,  for 
institutions,  for  raiment,  for  comforts  of  every  kind,  the  more  there 
is  in  the  single  man  demanding  these  things,  the  more  must  his  cir- 
cumstances open  up,  and  become  rich  and  potential.  And  in  looking 
upon  the  condition  of  the  community,  if  you  find  that  they  are  increas- 
ing in  the  variety  of  their  food,  in  the  quality  of  their  food,  and  in  the 
excellence  of  cooking  their  food  ;  if  you  find  that  then-  dwellings  are 
growing  better  and  better  from  period  to  period  ;  if  you  find  that  their 
furniture  is  more  beautiful,  answering  other  ends  than  merely  the 
mechanical  and  physical  ends — ministering  to  taste,  ministering,  if 
you  will,  to  luxury — if  you  find  these  things,  they  are  signs  of  upward 
development  and  of  growth.  These  are  the  signs  which  we  find 
all  the  way  through  our  people,  clear  down  to  the  bottom.  And  we 
are  beginning  to  find  them,  as  I  knew  we  should,  among  the  Freed- 
men  themselves.  For  no  sooner  was  their  bondage  broken  than  they 
began  to  feel  that  they  were  no  longer  animals,  but  men,  and  began, 
partly  from  imitation,  and  partly  from  that  instinct  which  is  common 
to  all  men,  to  gather  around  about  themselves  these  evidences  of 
growth,  development,  power. 

We  do  not  think  that  anywhere  on  the  globe  men,  on  the  whole, 
live  so  well  as  in  America — or  grumble  so  much  !  But  that  is  an  in- 
dispensable thing.  For  as  men  live  better,  their  criterion  of  life  grows 
with  the  betterment.  Taste  increases  in  a  greater  ratio,  oftentimes, 
than  possession ;  and  men  are  dissatisfied,  not  so  much  by  what  they 
have,  as  by  the  proportion  which  what  they  have  beai'S  to  their  ideal. 
It  is  our  ideals  that  make  us  grumblers.  And  so  there  is  some  com- 
fort in  that. 

The  tendency,  also,  is  to  augment  the  conveniences,  the  beauty,  and 
the  resources  of  homes.  There  is  universal  social  ambition  among 
the  laborers  of  America.     They  feel  the  dignity  of  citizenship.     Power, 


AMERIOAN  PROORESa.  207 

with  its  responsibility,  has  produced  upon  them  the  efiect  that  we  knew 
it  would.  It  has  educated,  it  has  inspired,  it  has  developed  them.  And 
the  consequence  is,  that  they  feel,  not  that  they  are  a  class  of  working 
men,  but  that  they  are  members  of  society.  They  call  themselves  citi- 
zens. They  belong  to  the  common  people.  They  are  a  part  of  the 
one  great  loaf;  and  though  each  one  is  but  a  crumb,  unbroken,  every 
crumb  is  loaf  And  this,  too,  is  a  sign  of  growth  in  the  i-ight  direc- 
tion. Show  me  a  man  who  is  content  with  things  just  as  they  have 
been,  when  he  has  it  in  his  power  to  make  them  better,  and  I  will 
show  you  a  man  whose  tendency  is  the  Avrong  way.  He  is  by  just  sd. 
much  less  than  a  man  who  is  contented  with  inferior  conditions  of  man- 
hood. 

There  are  other  signs  of  thrift.  The  great  fermentation  and  com- 
binations everywhere  pervading  workiisg  men  are  full  of  promise — 
and  vexation !  They  vex  the  present,  but  they  will  bless  the  future. 
This  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  wisdom  or  the  folly  of  any  of  the 
particular  measures  which  the  laboring  men  may  take.  All  causes 
which  come  up  from  the  bottom  of  society  find  their  way  up  by  the 
hardest ;  and  mistakes  are  the  rude  nurses  of  ignorant  men — rude,  but 
faithful.  No  class  and  no  nation  ever  was  raised  from  the  bottom  by 
very  much  help  from  the  top.  Thus  far  men  have  scarcely  discerned, 
and  certainly  have  not  learned,  that  superiority  is  an  ordination  of 
God,  and  makes  the  superior  class  the  nurses  and  helpers  of  the  in- 
ferior. But  aristocracy  has  grown  out  of  superiority,  for  the  most  part. 
As  soon  as  any  class  has  had  the  power  to  rise,  it  has  sej)arated  itself 
from  the  lower  class,  and  called  itself  cream,  and  desired  to  be  skimmed 
off! 

And  so  it  has  been  that  class  after  class,  as  we  go  down  in 
society,  have  been  obliged  to  fight  their  own  battle,  and  largely  to 
fight  it  against  those  who  should  have  been  their  helpers;  and  instead 
of  succor  from  those  who  were  wiser  and  stronger  than  themselves, 
they  have  had  resistance. 

Now,  it  is  not  strange  that  when  men  are  fighting  their  way 'up 
trom  the  bottom  of  society,  they  are  at  first  ignorant  of  the  best  modes  ; 
that  they  make  mistakes  in  the  instruments  selected,  and  in  the  meas- 
ures devised.  It  is  not  presumption  against  the  validity  and  excellence 
of  any  cause  that  its  advocates  are  making  many  mistakes.  Nothing 
could  be  worse  than  contentment  in  degradation.  And  there  is  nothing, 
with  all  its  mistakes,  that  is  more  auspicious  thar.  aspiration  and  enter- 
prise among  labormg  men.  Therefore  when  I  behold  them  counseling, 
and  gathering  tli,emselves  into  innumei-able  forms  of  association,  and 
learning  among  themselves  brotherhood,  and  forming  habits  of  common 
thought,  common  purposes,  and  common  government,  whi'rver  may 


208  THE  TENDENCIES  OF 

be  the  inconveniences  of  the  present,  I  regard  such  things  as  pre-emi- 
nently  auspicious.  They  show  that  the  laboring  classes  are  not  dead  ; 
that  they  are  not  inert ;  that  they  are  a  living  mass ;  and  that  they 
mean  to  live  to  some  purpose,  and  are  finding  out  the  way  to  do  it. 
My  heart  goes  with  these  my  fellow-citizens  under  such  chcumstances, 
even  when  my  head  does  not. 

Very  significant,  too,  is  the  assimilative  power  of  American  insti- 
tutions, as  shown  in  the  condition  and  the  conduct  of  foreign  labor  in 
our  midst.  For  it  is  not  our  native-born  citizens  alone  that  are 
laborious,  that  are  enterprising,  that  are  accumulating  property,  that 
are  good  citizens,  and  obedient  to  the  law.  There  have  been  thrown 
upon  our  shores  vast  masses,  now  almost  uncountable,  of  men  born 
under  other  skies,  other  institutions,  and  other  customs,  with  other 
ideas.  They  are  poured  upon  us  by  millions.  Many  have  feared  that 
they  would  change  the  color  of  the  nation  ;  that  they  would  gradually 
undermine  its  laws ;  that,  like  the  flowing  of  the  stream  which  will  chafe 
even  rocks,  so  at  last,  by  continual  attrition,  this  vast  mass  of  men 
pouring  in  upon  our  institutions  would  take  the  temper  out  of  them. 
But  they  have  not.  Our  institutions  are  stronger  to-day,  with  all  their 
population  from  abroad  in  them  and  under  them,  than  they  were  fifty 
years  ago,  or  even  twenty-five  years  ago.  And  in  those  periods  of 
critical  peril  when  everything  seemed  put  in  jeopardy,  there  was  no 
part  of  our  whole  population  from  the  north  to  the  south,  or  from  the 
east  to  the  west,  that  was  more  patriotic  than  our  foreign  population. 
And  when,  afterward,  still  other  moral  perils  ensued,  and  the  credit  of 
the  nation  was  at  stake,  there  were  no  parts  of  our  population,  taking 
the  country  through,  that  were  honester  and  truer  to  the  national 
integrity  than  our  foreign  population. 

And  why  should  they  desire  to  destroy  those  institutions  for 
which  they  voyaged  the  deep  and  left  their  own  land  ?  It  is  the 
peculiar  advantage  of  popular  laws  and  institutions,  that  they  are 
just  such  laws  and  institutions  as  common  men  want,  and  therefore 
are  just  such  as  common  men  do  not  want  to  destroy.  Except  in  a 
few  cities,  and,  to  be  plain,  except  from  one  nationality,  we  have 
scarcely  heard  a  word  of  lawlessness  from  the  great  throng  of  our  for 
sign  population.  The  Irish  are  an  ingenuous  people.  They  are  veiy 
frank  and  open,  and  they  usually  speak  out  what  they  think,  and  fre- 
quently act  too  openly  and  impulsively ;  and  I  must  admit  that  there 
has  been  some  trouble  springing  from  them.  Yet  I  say,  without  hesi- 
tation, that  in  fifty  years  all  the  trouble  will  have  been  a  cheap  price 
to  have  paid  for  the  good  qualities  which  that  stock  will  infuse  into  tlie 
Anglo-Saxon  stock.  It  is  cpod  stock,  though  it  is  very  hard  to  work 
up.  But  with  this  single  exception  good-naturedly  named,  where  have 
we  found  trouble  from  our  foreign  population  ? 


AMERICAN  PR 0  GRESS.  209 

TV^itli  o^casiona)  and  sporadic  exceptions,  where  have  we  found  bet- 
ter citizenship  then  among  them?  Where  have  we  found  men  that, 
on  the  whole,  not  only  were  conducting  themselves  better,  but  were 
contributing  more  directly  to  the  welfare  of  the  state,  or  of  the  regions 
wl^ere  they  had  settled  down,  than  our  emigrant  population  %  They 
mingle  among  us  ;  and  in  one  generation  they  are  as  indistinguishable 
from  us  as  if  they  and  their  parents  had  been  born  in  our  midst. 
They  do  not  clog  our  courts ;  they  do  not  mob  our  streets ;  they  do 
not  make  aggression  upon  law  nor  upon  civil  liberty.  Their  virtues, 
theii-  wisdom,  and  theu-  industry  we  ought  to  recognize,  both  with 
surprise  and  with  gratitude. 

Nor  do  I  believe  that  it  will  be  in  the  power  of  China  to  do  what 
all  Scandinavia  cannot  do.  I  am  just  as  little  afraid  of  the  East,  or 
the  West — no,  I  do  not  know  which  way  China  is — I  am  as  little  afraid 
of  the. Oriental  as  I  am  of  the  European.  Coming  with  another  tongue, 
not  easily  to  be  changed,  and  coming  with  a  very  different  race- 
temperament,  and  with  very  different  culture,  it  may  take  longer  to 
digest  them  ;  but  I  think  that  even  a  Chinaman,  when  he  has  been 
thoroughly  swallowed  by  American  institutions,  will,  though  he  lies 
long  by  them,  be  at  last  digested,  and  that  he  will  make  good  blood 
withal.  So  that  I  am  not  afraid  of  the  importation  of  Chinamen. 
And  though  they  do  not  understand  it,  others  will,  \\hen  I  say.  All 
hail  !  and  Welcoyne  ! 

Thei-e  may  be  many  who  object  to  the  Chinese  on  account  of  their 
compulsory  carriage  hither.  They  are  ashamed  to  admit  that  this 
country  is  shut  against  the  poor  and  the  laboring  classes  of  any  land 
under  heaven  ;  but  they  find  fault  Avith  the  carriage  of  them  by  enforced 
emigration.  "  Let  them  come  freely,"  say  they.  Oh  yes,  let  them  come 
freely,  say  I,  only  let  them  come  !  As  for  letting  them  come  freely, 
here  are  both  hands  for  that.  But  the  difficulty  is  not  that  it  is  an 
enforced  emigration,  but  that  it  is  a  competitions  labor.  And  on  that 
ground  I  say,  shame,  sham9  be  to  any  class  of  men  who  have  them- 
selves made  their  fortunes  by  bringing  in  cheap  labor  against  our  own 
native  labor,  and  have  established  themselves  with  our  full  welcome, 
and  then  turn  to  repel  others  who  come  just  as  they  came,  bearing  what  ■ 
they  bore- — willingness  to  work,  and  ability  to  Avork  cheaper  than 
our  own  laborers ! 

For  the  law  of  God  is  that  men,  as  they  come  up,  cannot  afford  to 
work  cheap.  Nothing  can  work  cheap  except  that  Avhich  is  cheap.  If 
you  have  only  a  hand  to  sell,  with  no  thought  in  it,  and  no  skill  in  it, 
you  can  afford  to  sell  that  hand  cheap ;  but  if  that  hand  has  forty 
years  of  experience  and  thought ;  if  that  hand  represents  the  whole 
machinery  of  your  mind  and  soul,  you  cannot  afford  to  sell  it  cheap— 


210  THE  TENDENCIES  OF 

and  I  do  not  want  to  iiave  you.  And  in  every  community  there  must 
be  these  classes.  The  lowest  and  most  ignorant,  who  have  never  gone 
to  school,  nor  had  the  means  of  culture  of  any  sort,  will  of  course 
work  cheap ;  and  they  will  work  cheap  because  they  bring  so  little  in 
their  work.  But  as  working  is  instruction,  they  come  up  ;  and  every 
step  they  come  up  they  give  more,  and  ask  more,  and  get  more  be- 
cause they  give  more.  It  is  the  quid  pro  quo  that  makes  the  price  all 
the  time.     It  is  the  great  law  of  equivalents. 

And  so,  while  one  class  of  foreign  population,  taking  advantage  of 
the  opportunity  offered,  have  been  laying  the  foundations  of  a  moder- 
ate competence,  and  have  been  going  up,  the  prices  of  their  labor  have 
been  rising.  And  I  do  not  object  to  that.  I  want  the  prices  of  theu' 
labor  to  rise,  because  I  believe  that  they  give  more  in  the  same  num- 
ber of  hours  than  they  did  when  they  were  unskilled  laborers. 

But  we  want  another  class  below  them.  And  when  they  come  op, 
we  shall  want  another  class  below  ^Aem.  "The  workman  is  rrorthy 
of  his  hire^"  but  it  is  one  of  the  misfortunes  of  ignorance  that  it  does 
not  know  how  to  be  wise. 

The  very  thing  that  we  need  more  now  than  almost  anything  of 
the  lower  interests  of  our  land,  is  labor.  With  our  vast  intermediary 
territories — that  land  which  for  a  hundred  years  will  hardly  see  seed- 
corn  for  lack  of  the  hands  to  open  the  furrows  and  plant  it — are  we 
in  a  condition  to  turn  away  any  man  wlio  will  come  here  honestly  to 
labor  and  to  thrive  ?  I  say,  God  bless  the  Swede  :  and  God  bless  the 
Dane ;  and  God  bless  the  German,  a  hundred  times  over ;  and  God 
bless  the  Frenchman  and  the  Italian,  if  they  come  here  to  be  good 
citizens  ;  and  God  bless  the  canny  Scotchman,  and  the  sturdy  English- 
man, and  the  mercurial  Irishman ;  and  God  bless  a  little  more  the 
Chuiaman, — because  he  needs  a  little  more  I 

On  the  whole,  then,  there  is  occasion  for  courage  and  for  thanks  in 
regard  to  labor,  and  in  regard  to  the  laborer.  Labor  is  remunerative. 
The  field  for  it  is  almost  illimitable.  Its'product  is  wonderful.  The 
laborers  are  no  longer  brute  beasts.  A  change  is  going  on  perpetually. 
There  is  fermentation,  there  is  circulation,  there  is  emulation  ;  and 
little  by  little  our  laboring  classes  are  coming  up  in  intelligence ;  in 
organizing  power ;  in  forecast ;  in  refinement ;  in  the  amplitude  of 
their  domestic  conditions;  in  all  the  things  that  go  to  make  men 
happy  here,  and  that  make  vu-tue  easy  and  aspiration  natural. 

And  it  is  a  theme  for  thanksgiving  to-day  that,  while  other  na- 
tions are  receiving  the  terrible  scourge  ;  while  upon  almost  a  whole 
continent  labor  is  suspended,  or  works  only  at  the  forge  and  the 
foundry,  for  pui-poses  of  destruction,  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  this  great  land  labor  whistles,  and  sings,  and  is  happy. 


AMERICAN  PB  0  GRESS.  211 

2.  Again,  the  general  aspect  of  wealth  in  America  is  sucli  as  to  give 
occasion  for  thanksgiving  to-day.  The  prodigious  facilities  for  de- 
veloping wealth  are  only  just  beginning  to  be  perceived  by  the  mass. 
The  future  fortunes  of  America  will  be  fabulous.  I  suppose  that  there 
are  to  be  fortunes  on  this  continent,  compared  with  which  what  were 
called  fortunes  once  will  seem  like  joenury.  The  power  of  organizing 
seems  to  be  almost  the  only  limit.  The  wealth  is  here.  It  is  easv  to 
be  developed.  It  is  easy  to  be  concentrated.  It  is  growing  easier 
every  decade  of  years  to  be  administered.  And  to  be  the  owner  of  a 
million  dollars  will  not  make  a  man  eligible  to  the  class  of  rich  men 
much  longer.  I  look  forward  into  that  "  golden"  future,  literally, 
which  is  opening  before  iis^  and  marvel  whether  the  most  poetic 
dreams  of  growing  wealth  may  not  fall  short  of  the  reality.  By  and 
by  there  is  to  be  a  genins  shown — there  are  yet  to  be  reputations, 
and  very  noble  reputations — for  organizing  and  amassing  wealth, 
compared  with  which  we  have  had  almost  nothing  in  the  past  his- 
toiy  of  nations. 

There  are  some  who  think  that  riches  are  always  and  only  dan- 
gerous. Riches  are  dangerous  simply  because  they  are  power;  and 
all  power  is  dangerous.  Power  is  dangerous  whether  it  be  legislative 
or  moral  power.  Even  variety  of  influence  is  dangerous.  And 
wealth  is  more  dangerous  than  other  forms  simply  because  it  is  a 
more  various  power,  and  has  certain  facilities  for  adaptation  and 
use  which  belong  to  almost  no  other  power.  But  it  is  impossible 
tc  civilize  a  community  without  riches.  I  boldly  affirm  that  no  nation 
ever  yet  rose  from  a  barbarous  state  except  through  the  mediation  of 
wealth  earned.  I  affirm  that  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  to  the 
heathen  will  be  invalid  and  void  if  it  does  not  make  them  active  work- 
men, and  teach  them  how  to  make  money.  And  although  the  evi- 
dences of  the  conversion  of  the  individual  are  not  that  he  knows 
how  to  make  money;  yet  in  a  nation  no  religion  is  a  good  religion 
that  does  not  teach  industry,  and  the  thrift  which  comes  from  industry. 
For  the  law  of  communities  is  not  analogous  to  the  law  of  the  indi- 
vidual. It  is  possible,  in  a  great,  rich,  civilized  community,  for  an  indi- 
vidual man  to  be  powerful,  and  preeminently  so,  and  yet  be  poor;  but 
no  poor  man  can  be  of  very  great  validity  in  a  poor  community.  The 
community  must  be  rich  if  he  is  to  have  power.  It  is  the  contrast, 
it  is  the  self-denial,  it  is  the  moral  efficiency  without  those  other  and 
external  instrumentalities,  that  make  him  so  marked,  if  he  labors  with 
voluntary  poverty.  But  no  community  can  develoj)  into  permanent 
civilization  unless  it  has  power  ministered  to  it  very  largely  through 
the  civilizing  influences  of  wealth.  This  alone  will  give  the  activity 
rccjuired  ;  this  alone  will  give  the  leisure  in  Avhich  men  soften,  and 
melio]"ate,  and  grow  beautiful 


212  THE  TENDENCIES  OF 

Now,  the  clangers  of  wealth  in  America  are  very  gi-eat.  They 
are  even  greater  than  we  fear.  Organized  wealth  is  one  great  danger 
which  lies  ahead,  looming  up  gigantically.  And  yet,  wealth  must  be 
organized.  The  community  will  have  to  find  \\'ays  in  which  to  protect 
itself,  however.  If  wealth  be  organized  to  do  as  it  pleases,  it  becomes 
very  dangerous.  Nevertheless,  organized  wealth  is  yet  to  be  a  bene- 
factor of  the  community  to  an  extent  that  we  have  never  suspected. 
It  tends  now  to  despotism ;  but  it  is  because  it  is  in  the  nascent 
stages. 

Great  corporations  are  dangerous.  They  do  not  need  to  be.  Scores 
of  millionaires  organized  together  in  concert  to  accomplish  great  ends 
need  not  be  any  more  dangerous  than  the  State  is.  There  may  be  an 
empyrean  of  wealth. ;  and  it  may  be  mischievous ;  but  it  does  not  need 
to  be.  At  present  it  is  so.  and  is  to  be  watched  against.  Wealth  tends 
to  control  all  other  power  in  society.  Especially  is  it  so  in  demo- 
cratic societies,  where  we  have  no  kings,  no  nobles,  no  fixed  estate  of 
honor,  no  titles,  no  positions  which  are  permanent,  and  where  wealth 
and  character  make  the  distinction,  very  largely,  between  man  and 
man.  Under  such  circumstances  wealth  tends  to  absorb  into  its  ov.ai 
hands  all  the  power  in  society.  But  it  is  not  necessarily  so.  It  is 
not  necessary  that  riches  should  control  courts  and  legislatures,  and 
the  franiihise  itself  It  is  not  necessary  that  wealth,  which  owns  the 
market,  should  also  own  the  civil  power,  though  it  is  a  danger  that 
is  to  be  met  and  overcome.  It  tends  to  feed  the  lower  nature ;  it 
tends  to  change  refinement  to  luxury,  and  luxury  to  corruption ;  but 
it  does  not  need  to  do  this. 

These  are  valid,  imminent,  pressing  dangers,  that  never  have  been 
exaggerated ;  and  yet  they  are  not  dangers  which  necessarily  attend 
the  accumulation  and  organization  of  great  wealth  in  any  community. 
It  will  require  the  vigilance  of  statesmen,  and  of  philanthropists,  and 
of  good  citizens,  to  guard  against  the  dangers  of  wealth.  But  it  is  not 
philosophical  to  look  only  on  the  diseases  of  a  community.  It  is  wise 
to  look  at  its  hygienic  qualities  as  well. 

Is  harm  and  danger,  then,  all  that  wealth  is  accomplishing  in  our 
midst  1  No.  It  is  the  almoner  of  employment,  as  it  is  the  almoner 
of  bread.  It  is  the  almoner  of  the  family.  It  is  the  almoner  of  unnum- 
bered households.  It  is  the  almoner  of  independence.  And  are  ws 
to  forget  that  capital — that  is,  wealth  in  activity — with  all  its  fric- 
tion, is  for  safer  than  invested  wealth,  lying  dead  ?  It  is  money  that 
is  working  that  keeps  bright,  and  it  is  money  that  is  working  that 
keeps  men  bright.  Although  workmg  money  is  by  various  exigencies 
brought  into  circumstances  where  it  must  be  limited,  overruled,  and 
curtailed,  yet  we  are  not  to  forget  on  this  account  that  at  the  same 


AMEBl  CAN  PR  0  GUESS.  213 

lime  it  is  that  which  is  vivifying  industry  to  the  bottom  of  society, 
and  that  is  carrying  out  on  its  broad  liands  and  arms  innumerable 
blessings  to  every  part  of  the  community.  The  very  cii'culation  of  the 
community  would  cease,  almost,  the  moment  that  wealth  should  cease 
to  exist.  It  is  the  blood  that  carries  nutrition  into  every  part  of  the 
whole  system. 

Riches,  therefore,  may  be  said  to  be  the  poor  man's  providence, 
provided  it  is  riches  in  use,  and  not  invested.     When  men  have  re- 
tired from  business,  and  their  wealth  is  laid  up,  there  is  less  danger 
from  it ;  but  there  is  less  benefit  from  it  at  the  same  time.     The 
dangers  which  we  see  threatening  us  are  not  less  than  real ;  but  look- 
ing comprehensively  at  the  general  tendency  of  wealth  in  America, 
it  is  working  in  subordination  to  intelligence  and  to  domestic  virtue. 
There  is  a  vast  deal  of  ignorant  using  of  wealth.     A  great  many  men 
use  their  property  for  ostentation ;  and  a  great  many  employ  it  for 
useless  pride ;  and  a  great  many  use  it  for  selfishness,  and  even  for 
vice.     But  how  to  use  money  is  an  art  just  as  much  to  be  learned  as 
how  to  make  it.     There  are  a  great  many  men  that  know  how  to 
make  money,  who  do  not  know  how  to  use  it ;  and  there  are  a  great 
many  men  that  know  how  to  spend  money,  who  do  not  know  how  to 
make  it.     Both  sides  are  to  be  learned.     Neither  comes  by  nature. 
There  is  art  in  it  as  much  as  there  is  in  learning  to  paint,  or  to  carve, 
or  to  fabricate  at  the  blacksmith's  forge,  or  at  the  joiner's  bench. 
And  men  must  not  be  expected  to  learn  it  in  a  generation.     There 
are  hundreds  and  thousands  of  men  who  began  with  literally  nothing, 
and  have  ended  with  two  or  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  which 
they  have  to  organize  and  commute  into  forms  of  civilization ;  and  is 
it  strange  that  a  great  many  men  do  not  know  how  to  do  it ;  that 
they  sometimes  build  and  furnish  extravagantly  and  out  of  taste  ? 
My  wonder  is  that  there  is  so  much  taste  and  discretion  exercised. 
For  if  you  go  through  town  after  town,  and  village  after  village,  and 
city  after  city,   you  will  find  that  extravagant  building  and  furnishing 
are  the  exception — not  the  rule.     The  rule  is  that  wealth  which  haa 
been  earned  wisely  is  being  expended  discreetly.     I  think  that  wealth 
to-day  is  being  used  more  for  building  up  American  homes  than  for  al- 
most all  other  purposes.     I  think  that  the  people  live  in  better  houses 
here  than  they  do  in  any  other  country,  the  world  over.     I  am  sui-e 
they  do.   Men  of  the  same  rank  in  life,  of  the  same  professions,  and 
of  the  same  conditions  of  wealth,  live  in  better  houses,  more  amply 
stored,  and  with  more  conveniences,  here  than  anywhere  else.     Tliera 
is  more  ingenuity  in  the  construction  of  houses  here — and  it  require& 
more  ingenuity  to  keep  them  constructed ! — than  iu  any  other  land 
on  the  globe. 


214  THE  lENDENCIES  OF 

Nowhere  else  will  you  find  so  many  homes  that  jcre  filled  witK 
elegance.  Nor  are  we  to  suppose  that  all  the  elegance  goes  with  the 
city  and  the  town.  You  shall  hear  the  sound  of  the  piano  in  every 
cluster  of  three  houses  throughout  the  land,  almost,  from  ocean  to 
ocean.  And  if  there  is  anything  in  this  world  that  is  a  luxury,  it  iB 
an  instrument  of  music.  You  cannot  eat  it ;  you  cannot  take  it  for 
medicine ;  you  cannot  sell  it — generally ;  it  has  none  of  those  ear- 
marks w  hich  men  attach  to  other  property ;  and  yet  there  is  almosi 
nothing  else  which  men  so  much  covet  everywhere.  The  carpenterj 
the  black-smith,  the  farmer,  if  he  has  a  daughter,  wants  an  instru- 
ment of  music.  And  it  has  ceased  to  be  considered  extravagant. 
The  statistics  of  the  piano-manufacturers  of  America  (and  they  are 
not  all  in  New  York,  nor  in  Boston,  nor  in  Baltimore,  nor  in  Phila- 
delphia :  go  back  into  the  inland  villages,  go  into  some  mid-county  of 
the  State  of  New  York,  and  you  shall  find  there  rising  before  your 
sight,  never  heard  of  before,  a  factory  of  pianos,  that  sells  its  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  pianos  every  year,  though  it  would  seem  as  though 
there  were  more  thousands  made  in  this  city  than  could  be  bought  by 
all  the  world  put  together) — the  statistics  of  the  manufacturers  of  that 
one  single  item  epitomize  the  extent  of  the  home  comfort  and  elegance 
to  which  the  people  of  America  have  attained.  It  is  remarkable.  There 
is  no  land  on  earth  where  individual  men  earn  so  much  money  as  in 
America.  I  suppose  that  the  money-producing  force  in  our  country  is 
greater  than  that  of  any  other  people  ( — a  hint  to  tax-payers !)  Not 
only  that,  but  this  money-producing  power  is  accompanied  by  a  greater 
power  to  use  money  for  the  furtherance  of  home  purposes  here  than 
anywhere  else.  For  land  is  so  cheap  that  it  is  hardly  considered 
treasure  in  the  same  sense  that  it  is  in  Europe,  where  it  is  almost  im- 
possible to  get  it,  and  where  to  own  land,  as  in  England,  is  almost  to 
have  a  title,  there  being  but  some  twenty-five  thousand  land  owners 
in  all  Great  Britain.  But  in  America  land  is  so  cheap  that  it  is  no 
sign  that  a  man  is  wealthy  because  he  owns  land — oftentimes  the 
contrary ! 

People,  therefore,  in  the  administration  of  wealth,  accumulate 
not  so  much  great  estates  as  houses,  and  well-furnished  houses.  Is 
it  a  strange  thing  to  go  into  a  woi'kingman's  house,  and  to  find  his 
five  hundred  volumes  ?  It  is  less  frequent  than  it  should  be,  but  it  is 
not  at  all  strange.  Is  it  strange  to  find  in  the  houses  of  plain  laborers 
magnificent  libraries?  Old  Dowse  of  Cambridge,  a  tanner  and  currier 
all  his  life,  bears  witness.  He  had  one  of  the  finest  libraries  in  all 
Massachusetts.  It  was  composed  of  the  choicest  books,  admirably 
selected,  and  finely  bound;  and  they  were  books  that  he  read,  too. 
Cambridge  was  to  have  had  it,  but  some  of  the  people  there  saw  fit  to 


AMERICAN  PR 0  QRES3.  215 

insnlt  liim  because  ho  was  a  tanner  and  currier,  and  so  lie  slipped  by 
them,  and  gave  it  to  the  Historical  Society,  or  some  other  institution, 
in  Boston  ;  and  there  it  is  ;  and  when  I  want  to  go  on  a  pilgrimage,  and 
cannot  go  to  Mecca  nor  to  Jerusalem,  I  go  thei-e  to  see  the  tanner  and 
currier's  library. 

It  is  not  strange  to  find  a  man  who  works  at  the  forge  all  day,  grim 
and  grizzly,  going  home  at  night  to  pursue  historical  reading,  I 
know  farmers  that  I  should  dislike  to  meet  in  an  argument  (unless  I 
was  on  the  same  side  with  them !)  And  they  are  not  cases  here  and 
there,  selected.  It  is  characteristic  of  our  working  people,  and  of  men 
that  are  well  to  do,  that  they  are  growing  up  to  make  the  town  in  which 
they  live  beautiful  and  intelUgent.  Their  houses  themselves  are  often 
models  of  taste  and  convenience,  and  are  setting  examples  which  one 
by  one  the  neighbors  follow.  And  so,  in  the  train  of  industry  comes 
wealth,  and  of  wealth,  taste,  and  of  taste,  beneficence  ;  and  refinement 
Hashes  throughout  the  land.  And  when  I  hear  men  speaking  bitterly 
against  wealth,  I  notice  that  almost  invariably  they  are  men  who 
have  not  got  it.  When  I  hear  them  deride  moneyed  men,  moneyed 
kings,  moneyed  princes,  it  seems  to  me  that  they  have  not  well  con- 
sidered the  facts.  They  only  think  of  here  and  there,  it  may  be,  a 
Croesus.  But  if  you  follow  the  more  moderate  fortunes  ;  if  you  look 
into  the  whole  career  of  money  in  this  land,  not  the  Nile,  when  it 
comes  down  with  its  annual  freshet  and  distributes  the  slime  which 
is  the  riches  of  Egypt  over  the  circumjacent  territory,  is  so  great  a 
blessing  to  Egypt,  as  is  the  great  difiiision  of  wealth  in  this  country 
to  America.  And  nowhere  else  does  wealth  so  directly  point  towards 
virtue  in  morality, and  spirituality  in  religion,  as  in  America. 

So  then,  I  am  not  afraid  to  rejoice.  Get  rich,  if  you  can.  Pay 
anything  for  riches.  Anything  ?  Yes,  pay  yourself;  pay  weariness  ; 
pay  head-cracking  thought ;  pay  anything  but  this — do  not  pay  your 
honor,  nor  your  affection,  nor  your  simplicity,  nor  your  faith  in  man, 
nor  your  love  to  God.  But  whatever  you  can  take  out  of  the  body, 
pay.  And  when  you  shall  have  amassed  wealth,  it  will  be  God's 
power,  if  you  are  wise  to  use  it,  by  which  you  can  make  your  home 
happier,  the  community  more  refined,  and  the  whole  land  more 
civilized. 

Wealth  in  America,  also,  is  public-spirited  (I  thought  I  had  got 
through  ;  but  I  find  two  or  three  more  heads).  The  classes  that  are 
amassing  money  furnish  a  large  proportion  of  all  the  funds  by  whicli 
the  active  charities  of  society  arc  carried  on.  The  buildin^-s  whicli 
decorate  our  community  are  from  the  hands,  mostly,  of  wealthy  men. 
Architecture  is  the  adopted  child  of  wealth.  The  fine  arts  could 
scarcely  exist  but  for  the  interposition  of  wealth.    The  universities. 


216  TEE  TENDENCIES  OF 

and  academies,  and  colleges,  and  public  libraries,  and  reading  rooms, 
and  balls  for  lectures,  are  the  fruit  of  liberal  wealth  in  America. 
Cornell,  Vassar,  Cooper,  Williston,  Lawrence,  and  a  hundred  others, 
are  significant  American  names.  And  there  are  more  coming  for- 
M'ard,  who  yet  will  not  simply  be  known  by  their  money  among  those 
that  love  them,  but  whose  names  will  become  symbolic  of  some  great 
public  charity,  or  some  great  public  spirit. 

Wealth  is  searching  out  the  neglected  classes; is  distributing  from 
our  cities  vagabond  children ;  is  opening  schools  for  the  laboring 
classes,  to  teach  them  all  mechanic  arts.  I  may  safely  say  that  no 
public  need  can  be  wisely  presented  to  the  wealth  of  America,  and  not 
be  liberally,  and  at  times  munificently,  taken  care  of  In  other  lands, 
governments  give  much  for  public  institutions ;  but  in  America  the 
.Teat  bulk  of  the  means  required  to  build  up  the  institutions  of  civil- 
Kation,  and  to  support  them,  is  contributed  by  the  people,  and  by 
the  business  men  of  the  people. 

Wealth,  then,  like  its  owners,  has  its  devil  and  its  temptation; 
it  has  its  mistakes  and  perversions ;  it  has  its  great  dangers  to  society; 
but  its  blessings  are  a  hundred-fold.  And,  on  the  whole,  the  general 
tendency  of  wealth  is  such  as  to  lead  me  to-day  to  thank  God  for  the 
increasing  wealth  of  America.  May  it  ever  be  sanctified.  May  it  ever 
learn  nobler  uses,  and  aspire  higher  and  higher,  until  the  symbolism 
of  the  heavenly  state,  where  the  very  streets  are  paved  with  gold,  shall 
be  rejoroduced  in  the  realities  and  actualities  of  our  life  here  on  earth. 

3.  T  meant  to  speak  of  the  cause  of  education,  and  the  reasons  for 
thanksgiving  in  that  direction ;  and  also  of  the  progress  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  all  forms  of  refinement.  I  can,  however,  not  even  mention 
them,  in  detail.  I  only,  in  closing,  shall  speak  of  the  religious  con- 
dition of  the  land,  as  a  grand  reason  for  thanksgiving. 

4.  There  are  many  signs,  which,  if  taken  alone,  will  distress  the 
mind,  and  so  distress  many  timid  souls.  Such  is  the  prevalence  of  scien- 
tific scepticism,  such  is  the  subversion  of  old  landmarks,  and  the  setting 
aside  of  cherished  beliefs,  and  the  letting  go  of  old  systems,  and  the 
coming  in  of  violent  actions  and  reactions  of  men  that  have  drunk 
new  wine  (for  truth  is  intoxicating  to  men  whose  heads  are  not  strong), 
that  there  is  an  impression  that  religion  is  losing  ground  ;  that  it  is 
becoming  an  old  story — a  superstition.  But  this  scene  is  enacted  every 
three  or  four  hundred  years;  and  religion  comes  up  every  time 
stronger  and  stronger.  I  think  religion  is  like  the  grass  of  the  meadow, 
which,  when  burnt  over,  lies  black  and  charred,  but  the  ashes  of  which 
are  a  stimulating  manure,  which  afterwards  fosters  a  growth  that 
is  stronger  than  that  to  which  the  violence  was  done.  And  my  faith 
in  religion  is  not  in  the  church,  and  not  in  doctrines,  and  not  in  books, 


AMERICAN  PR 0  QRE88.  217 

and  not  in  ministers,  nor  in  anything  external  to  man,  but  in  that 
nature  which  God  created,  and  which  makes  religion  indispensable  to 
man.  Until  man  himself  dies,  there  will  be  a  faith,  and  that  faith  will 
fashion  to  itself  both  beliefs  and  services  of  devotion. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  was  never,  probably,  so  intelligent  a  faith 
as  there  is  to-day,  in  so  many  men.  Never  were  there  so  many  men 
who  thought  so  much  on  the  subject  of  religion,  and  read  so  much,  and 
argued  so  much,  and  looked  so  far  into  the  themes  of  their  belief  as  to- 
day. Not  among  the  educated  classes  alone,  but  among  plain  people 
of  the  country,  I  think  there  is  more  reading,  and  more  thinking,  and 
more  real  heart-interest  in  religion  than  ever  before. 

Then  there  is  a  drawing  together,  a  more  kindred  feeling,  which 
is  taking  the  place  of  the  rancor  and  sectarian  bitterness  which  pre- 
vailed not  a  great  while  ago,  in  many  directions. 

And  it  is  very  noticeable  that  the  different  sects  of  religion  are 
softening,  and  that  men  are  coming  together  in  conference  who  only 
a  few  years  ago  thought  it  their  duty  to  hate  and  club  one  another. 
This  growing  spirit  of  love  and  fellowship  in  differing  churches  is  one 
of  the  signs  of  the  growth  of  religion. 

Religious  ethics,  also,  are  more  widely  diffused.  Though  there 
may  not  be  in  the  general  mind  as  much  belief  in  doctrinal  religion  as 
there  once  was,  there  is  more  belief  in  the  ethics  of  religion  than  there 
was  ever  before.  The  standards  of  belief  that  are  set  up  by  the  word 
of  God  are  more  universally  accepted  and  applied  to-day  than  formerly 
they  were.  Governments  conform  to  the  Christian  spirit  more  than 
ever  they  did  before.  Jurisprudence  seeks  to  measure  itself  more 
than  ever  according  to  the  equity  that  was  in  Christ  Jesus.  The 
heart  is  regulating  itself  more  by  those  great  laws  of  simplicity  and 
truth  and  righteousness,  or  justice,  if  I  may  so  say,  than  ever  before. 
And  even  business  is  seeking,  among  all  its  contortions,  to  cast  the 
devil  of  dishonesty  out  of  itself  I  think  business  never  before 
acknowledged  so  high  a  standard  as  it  does  to-day.  And  while  the  be- 
lief in  creeds  and  formularies  may  have  changed,  the  belief  in  ethical 
standards  of  religion  was  never  so  universally  employed  as  to-day. 

And  humanity — which  is  sympathy  for  man  in  his  sorrow  and  in 
his  need— when  was  there  ever  so  much  of  it  ?  When,  in  any  age  of 
the  world  since  Christ  was  lifted  up  on  Calvary,  has  such  a  scene  been 
presented  as  to-day  is  witnessed,  when  France  is  humbled  ?  My  heart 
is  sore  for  her.  And  though  I  know  that  the  wheat  before  it  is 
bread  must  be  ground ;  and  though  I  believe  in  the  loaf,  yet,  when 
the  wheat  is  living  men,  I  cannot  bear  to  see  the  grinding.  To-day, 
one  vast  nation  is  treading  another  vast  nation  under  foot ;  and  all  the 
out-lying  world  around — England,  with  all  her  dependencies,  Germany 


\/ 


218  TEB  TENDENCIES  OF 

itself,  America,  Italy,  and  all  the  other  nations — by  bazars,  by  fairs, 
by  collections  in  churches,  and  by  contributions  of  public-spirited  men, 
is  pouring  out  a  tide  of  wealth  to  relieve  the  sufferers.  And  if  war 
must  be,  humanity  stands  by  to  bind  up  the  wounds  that  war  makes. 
When  before  was  there  such  a  looking-on,  such  a  spectatorship  ?  In 
regard  to  the  inhuman  wars  of  the  world,  humanity  was  never  so  wide- 
spread. Never  was  there  such  sensibility  among  the  nations  of  the 
earth  as  there  is  to-day.  A  benevolent  or  cordial  and  cooperative  kind- 
ness in  the  upbuilding  of  society  never  was  wider  than  to-day.  And 
faith  in  God — not  perhaps  according  to  your  definition  nor  according 
to  mine,  but  faith  in  an  overruling  power;  faith  in  an  unerring  wis- 
dom ;  faith  in  a  goodness  which  is  paternal ;  faith  in  One  who  looks 
upon  the  whole  human  race  as  his  family,  and  not  as  a  despot  looks 
upon  his  subjects  ;  faith  that  leads  men  to  see  roseate  colors  in  the 
heaven,  and  not  crushing  bolts ;  faith  in  God,  as  the  almighty  good, 
was  never  stronger,  and  never  was  growing  so  fast,  nor  so  deep. 

Here,  then,  is  our  survey.  Our  territorial  condition  is  prosperous. 
Our  material  i^rosperity  is  eminent,  and  it  is  tending  upward  rather 
than  downward.  Our  labor  and  our  laborers  are  prospering;  and  they 
are  working  upward.  Wealth,  with  all  its  tendencies,  on  the  whole, 
is  on  the  line  of  development  toward  moral  and  not  toward  physical 
things.  Education  is  widely  prevalent,  and  is  taking  in  more  perfectly 
every  class.  Refinement  is  becoming  the  indispensable  element  of  all 
prosperity.  Religion  itself,  though  losing  many  of  its  antique  forms 
and  services,  as  a  spirit  and  as  a  controlling  influence,  was  never  so 
strong.  I  thank  God  for  all  the  signs  of  the  times.  I  thank  God  for 
the  health  and  for  the  prosperity  of  the  nation. 

And  now,  I  have  but  one  word  to  say  more :  as  we  have  been  put 
in  the  van  among  nations  to  develop  principles  in  their  practical  forms 
that  were  only  known  as  seed-corn  in  other  lands,  my  heart's  ambition 
is,  first,  for  the  welfare  of  this  whole  land,  for  the  sake  of  the  burden 
of  the  population  which  it  carries.  God  bless  America.  Not  be- 
cause I  was  born  in  it ;  not  because  it  is  my  America,  and  because 
I  receive  the  reflection  of  its  glory,  and  a  dividend  of  its  power.  I 
am  not  insensible  to  these  things ;  yet  not  on  those  accounts  that 
are  personal  to  me  do  I  implore  God's  blessing  upon  America ; 
but  because  this  contine-nt  carries  such  a  burden  of  humanity  that 
its  weal  or  woe  wUl  be  like  an  eternal  weal  or  woe,  infinite,  end- 
less. May  God,  for  the  sake  of  neighboring  peoiilcs,  bless  this 
land.  And  as  God  is  making  us  wise,  and  rich,  and  strong,  and 
expert,  and  fearless,  may  He  take  the  lion  and  the  bear  out  of  our 
nature,  and  give  us  the  spirit  of  the  dove,  that  we  may  stand  frown- 
ing  on   our  shores  against  no  foreign  people ;  that  v\^e   may  be  no 


AMERICAN  FBOGBESS.  219 

band  of  robbers  to  filch  and  to  steal  from  the  feeble  and  the  poor. 
May  God  give  us  magnanimity  and  power  and  riches,  that  we  may 
throw  the  shadow  of  our  example  upon  the  poor,  the  perishing, 
and  the  ready-to-be-destroyed,  for  their  protection.  And  cursed — 
cursed  of  God,  and  of  men  cursed — be  tliat  man  who  counsels  the  red 
right  hand  of  war  except  when  it  is  needful  to  fight  for  our  own  exist- 
ence !  We  have  no  war  that  we  want  to  wage  except  the  war  of 
righteousness  in  ourselves.  It  is  not  for  us  to  bombard  and  destroy 
other  nations,  and  to  follow  the  vices  of  tyrannies.  What  is  the  use 
of  the  reign  of  the  common  people,  where  is  the  glory  of  democracy, 
if  it  can  but  ape,  and  with  greater  cruelty,  the  mischiefs  of  despot- 
ism ?  Let  kings  war  ;  let  aristocrats  war ;  but  the  common  people  of 
a  great  republic  should  own  the  brotherhood  of  man.  And,  instead 
of  raising  aloft  the  red  hand,  let  them  throw  the  nursing  arm  of  pro- 
tection around  about  their  neighbors,  and  call  all  men  their  brethren, 
and  dwell  together  in  fealty,  in  unity,  in  sympathy,  and  in  happiness. 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMOK 

Almighty  God,  we  thank  thee  for  the  promise  which  thou  hast  made  unto 
the  Church,  and  for  all  the  glory  of  that  latter-day  which,  far  away  and 
dim,  hangs  like  a  golden  haze  ahove  the  future.  We  rejoice  to  believe  that 
men  shall  not  forever  debase  themselves ;  that  the  time  shall  come  when 
the  name  of  God  shall  be  beloved  of  all  men,  and  when  that  love  which  pre- 
vails in  heaven  shall  flow  through  all  the  earth,  and  war  be  heard  no  more, 
and  nations  vex  each  other  no  longer ;  and  when  peace  and  righteousness 
shall  prevail  everywhere.  We  thank  thee,  O  Lord !  that  we  see  some  of  the 
blessed  signs  and  tokens  of  this  coming  glory.  Not  that  it  is  already  estab- 
lished ;  for  men  do  hate.  Men  destroy  thy  heritage,  and  deface  thine  image, 
yet.  The  power  of  the  lower  life  is  greater  than  the  power  of  the  spiritual 
life.  But  we  behold  on  every  side  the  signs  and  the  tokens  of  spring ;  not 
fruits  yet,  nor  even  flowers,  but  the  buds,  are  apparent.  And  we  rejoice  to 
believe  that  the  time  shall  assuredly  come,  and  that  we  shall  behold  it  from 
the  other  land  if  not  from  this,  when  all  the  earth  shall  see  thy  salvation. 

And  now,  we  pray  that  we  may  labor  in  our  day  and  generation  for  the 
fulfillment  of  thy  righteous  will  in  our  own  nation.  We  thank  thee  that 
thou  hast  given  us  our  breath  and  our  life  in  this  goodly  laud.  We  thank 
thee  for  all  the  privileges  which  we  have— all  that  are  natural,  and  all  that 
are  derived  from  the  wise  laws  and  institutions  of  our  fathers.  We  thank 
thee  for  the  path  through  which  thou  hast  led  us,  grooving  brighter  and 
brighter,  and  more  and  more  beneficent.  Thou  hast  ordained  a  place  for 
this  people's  march  ;  and  though  at  times  thou  hast  chastised  us,  and  passed 
us  through  the  fiery  furnace,  yet  it  has  been  for  good.  And  thou  that  hast 
ordained  war  hast  ordained  peace,  and  with  peace  four-fold  prosperity. 

We  thank  thee  especially  for  the  mercies  of  the  year  that  has  gone ;  that 
the.  husbandman  has  sown  his  seed  in  hope,  that  his  hope  has  not  been 


220      TEE  TENDENCIES  OF  AMEBIC  AN  FE0GEE8S. 

disappointed,  and  that  the  harvest  has  more  than  fulfilled  the  expectation 
of  sowing. 

We  thank  thee  for  the  abundance  which  now  gives  so  much  to  the  need 
of  those  who  are  poor  and  are  feeble.  We  thank  thee  for  the  open  hand 
and  the  bounty  of  those  that  have  to  spare.  And  we  beseech  of  thee  that 
throughout  all  our  land  there  may  be  given  to  this  people  a  larger  heart, 
and  a  feeling  of  sincere  sympathy  and  of  true  brotherhood.  We  thank  thee 
that  thou  hast  given  us  rest  within  our  borders  during  the  past  year ;  that 
all  the  interests  of  society  have  been  peacefully  pursued  ;  that  schools  have 
prospered;  that  colleges  have  thriven;  that  churches  have  been  founded, 
or  have  been  built  up ;  that  the  word  of  life  has  been  preached  with  power 
from  on  high. 

We  thank  thee  for  all  the  household  happiness  which  has  been  vouch- 
safed to  us.  Our  lives  have  been  spared.  Thou  hast  been  gracious  unto  our 
children.  Thou  hast  multiplied  our  mercies.  Thy  judgments  have  been 
few,  and  they  have  been  tempered  with  very  great  goodness. 

We  thank  thee  for  our  personal  experience ;  for  all  the  hopes  that  we 
have.  And  now  we  desire,  as  in  our  own  homes  separately,  and  in  our  own 
hearts,  so  collectively  and  together,  to  give  thanksgiving  and  praise  to  thee 
for  all  the  year,  and  all  thy  varied  manifestations  therein.  We  commend 
our  households,  and  our  state,  and  this  nation,  to  thy  care  for  the  years  that 
are  yet  tc  come.  Lord  God  of  our  fathers,  yet  be  the  guide  of  this  people. 
Be  thou  their  judge  and  tlieir  lawgiver.  And  we  pray  that  great  things 
may  yet  be  done  by  this  people,  for  peace,  for  happiness,  for  the  whole 
world's  regeneration.  Let  thy  kingdom,  long  predicted,  begin  to  come — 
tliat  kingdom  in  which  dwelleth  righteousness.  Oh !  let  us  hear  the  foot- 
steps, not  of  one  who  shall  tread  down  nations  in  his  wrath,  but  of  Him  of 
the  pierced  feet.  Grant,  O  Lord !  that  his  coming  may  be  speedy,  with  all 
the  signs  of  power  and  of  glory.    And  let  the  whole  earth  see  his  salvation. 

And  now  accept,  we  beseech  of  thee,  the  service  which  we  offer  up  to 
thee, — our  prayers,  our  praises,  all  the  services  of  instruction.  May  we  re- 
joice before  thee  in  the  hours  of  this  day  that  yet  remain ;  and  may  our 
hearts  be  glad  in  the  blessing  of  our  God.  And  when  all  these  earthly  expe- 
riences are  past,  be  pleased  to  give  us  an  exceeding  and  abundant  entrance 
into  the  joys  of  thine  other  land,  where  we  will  praise  the  Father,  the  Son, 
and  the  Holy  Spirit,  forever  more.    Amen. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Father,  wilt  thou  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  the  word  spoken. 
Grant  that  our  hopes,  and  our  courage,  and  our  aspirations,  and  our  yearn- 
ings for  the  future,  may  not  be  in  vain.  Accapt  our  humble  acknowledg- 
ments of  our  Liii  worthiness ;  our  acknowledgements  of  thy  great  mercy 
to  our  forefathers,  and  to  us  tlieir  posterity.  And  as  thou  hast  guided 
us  by  thy  law  and  counsel  hitherto,  so  continue  to  guide  this  great  nation, 
making  it  greater — making  it  great  for  goodness ;  great  for  purity ;  great 
lor  the  prosperitv  of  men.  And  may  we  live  to  see  it  a  nation  not  only 
peaceful,  but  breathing  the  spirit  of  peace  through  all  the  disturbed  nations 
of  the  earth.  Hasten  the  day  when,  from  the  rising  of  the  sun  to  the  going 
down  of  the  same,  all  nations  shall  know  thee  and  fear  thee.  We  ask  it  for 
Christ's  sake,    jlmen. 


XIII. 

The  Higher  Spiritual  Life. 


INVOCATION. 

Make  known  thyself,  thou  Invisible,  if  not  to  these  mortal  eyes,  yet  to  oui 
hearts ;  and  to  our  spirits  disclose  thyself,  eternal  Father.  Blessed  be  thy 
name  for  all  the  hope  through  Jesus  Christ,  and  for  life  and  light  through 
the  eternal  Spirit !  Vouchsafe  to  us,  this  day,  that  communion  which  thou 
dost  grant  to  all  thy  saints.  Give  to  us  joy  in  thy  Work,  access  through 
prayer,  fellowship  through  the  Spirit.  And  one  with  another  may  we  re- 
joice to  lay  aside  care  and  burden,  and  to  hear  of  the  other  life,  and  to  par- 
take of  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit.  And  so  may  this  day  be  memorable  in  our 
experience,  exalting  us  above  the  life  of  the  flesh,  and  bringing  us  into  the 
communion  of  God.    We  ask  it  in  the  name  of  Jesus,  our  Redeemer.    Amen. 

13 


THE  HIGHEE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE. 


"  And  Jesus  returned  in  the  power  of  the  Spirit  into  Galilee;  and  there 
wont  out  a  fame  of  him  through  all  the  region  round  about.  And  he  taught 
in  their  synagogues,  being  glorified  of  all." — Luke  iv.,  14, 15. 


Of  the  whole  early  period  of  Christ's  life — his  human  life — until 
his  baptism,  there  is  no  record  of  the  exertion  of  special  power,  or  even 
of  any  considerable  influence.  For  some  twenty-seven  years,  it  was  a 
life  of  seclusion  ;  and  whatever  may  have  been  the  developments  of 
it,  there  is  no  record  made.  His  childhood  is  set  out  briefly.  He  re- 
appears once,  going  with  his  parents  to  Jerusalem  to  the  feast,  when  he 
is  twelve  years  of  age.  Then  he  disappears ;  and  he  does  not  appear 
again  until  he  is  twenty-seven  years  of  age.  And  during  that  whole 
time,  there  is  almost  no  disclosure  of  his  power. 

A  time  came,  when  the  veil  seemed  to  be  removed.  His  baptism 
and  his  temptation  in  the  wilderness  were  past.  He  went  back  for  a 
month  or  two  to  Galilee,  after  these  experiences,  and  then  returned 
again  to  Jerusalem,  to  one  of  the  great  feasts.  At  this  time  it  was  that 
he  drove  out  the  money-changers  and  the  traffickers  from  the  temple, 
and  cleansed  it.  Staying  but  a  short  time,  he  returned  to  Galilee  by 
way  of  Samaria.  And  it  is  after  he  has  left  Samaria  behind  him,  that 
this  record  comes  in.    He  returns  to  Galilee  in  the  power  of  the  /Spirit, 

Here  began,  really,  the  active  period  of  his  ministry,  which  was 
compressed  into  a  very  little  more  than  twelve  months.  For,  although 
three  years  are  usually  assigned  to  Christ  as  the  period  of  his  ministrv, 
the  active  period  of  it  was  but  very  little  over  twelve  months — and 
those  the  last  of  his  earthly  life.  There  are  strange  periods  in  which  ho 
is  hidden  from  the  sight.  In  making  out  a  strict  chronological  view  of 
the  public  life  of  Christ,  you  will  find  that  one  month,  two  months,  three 
months  are  dropped  out  and  lost  sight  of;  that  there  is  a  continuous 
account  of  him  during  only  the  last  twelve  months  of  his  life ;  and  that 
in  this  period  almost  all  his  miracles  were  performed,  and  almost  all 
his  discourses  were  delivered.     This  is  the  period  that  followed  imnie- 

SUNDAT   Morning,  Nov.  27,  1870.    Lesson  :    Acts   II.    1-42.      Hymns    (Plj-mouth  C'ol- 
lecuon)  :  Nos.  23,  430,  472. 


222  TEE  HIGHER  SPIRITUAL  LIFE. 

diately  after  the  statement, — And  Jesus  returned  to  Galilee  in  the 
power  of  the  Spirit. 

It  is  at  this  point,  then,  that  there  was  an  extraordinary  disclosure 
of  the  nature  and  power  of  Christ.  That  he  had  been  godly,  and  that 
he  had  exerted  moral  force,  before  this,  none  doubt.  That  he  had  in 
a  consecrated  spirit  successfully  entered  upon  his  life-work  before  this 
special  disclosure,  there  can  be  no  question.  But  there  came  a  point 
at  which  his  spirit  was  gradually  enlarged.  There  was  a  new  liberty 
that  he  experienced.  There  came  upon  him  an  impulse  higher  and 
more  fruitful  than  he  had  ever  known  before.  An  iufluence  pervaded' 
him  which  not  only  transcended  that  of  his  ordinary  former  condition, 
but  was  well  nigh  irresistible,  and  carried  everything  for  a  time  before 
it,  and  rolled  up  the  community  in  waves  of  excitement  as  a  wind 
rolls  up  the  waves  of  the  sea.  For  we  have  no  adequate  conception  of 
the  degree  of  excitement  that  was  produced  by  the  first  nine  or  ten 
months  of  Christ's  ministry  in  Galilee.  All  classes  felt  his  personal 
presence.  There  scarcely  could  be  developed  an  open  opposition  to 
him.  He  was  glorified  by  all,  is  the  record.  And  this  continued  very- 
much  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

Here,  then,  was  an  ordinary  condition  in  the  beginning ;  then  an 
exaltation  into  a  higher  condition  of  power,  which  afterwards  remained 
permanent  with  him.  It  seemed  not  so  much  like  new  elements  of 
power,  as  the  clothing  of  former  elements  with  a  greater  scope  and  in- 
fluence. It  was  not  so  much  that  Christ  seemed  different  from  what 
he  did  before,  as  that  there  was  more  of  him  of  the  same  kind  ;  and 
that  it  was  more  irresistible.  The  tenor  of  his  discourses  before  he  re- 
turned with  the  power  of  the  Spirit  on  him,  was  substantially  the  same 
as  the  tenor  of  his  after  discourses.  But  the  eifect  was  not  the  same ; 
and  the  Scripture  speaks  of  this  as  the  result  of  the  divine  Spirit  resting 
upon  him. 

Now,  this  is  full  of  interest  in  every  way  in  which  you  can  look  at 
it :  First,  as  bringing  up  the  question  of  Christ's  divinity.  Can  One 
who  is  divine  receive  augmented  powers  ?  Especially  can  he  from  an- 
other co-equal  Spirit  receive  augmentation  ?  To  this  inquiry  it  may  be 
replied  that  Christ's  life  on  earth  was  divine.  It  was  God  manifest  in 
or  through  the  flesh.  It  was  the  divine  circumscribed.  It  was  not  in 
its  own  full  estate,  but  humbled,  environed  by  laws  through  the  flesh. 
It  restricted,  hindered,  and  at  times  seemed  well-nigh  to  eclipse  the 
development,  the  outshining  of  the  divine  natui-e  that  was  within. 
Therefore  he  was  subject  to  the  same  natural  law,  to  the  same  law  of 
growth  and  gradual  development,  and  to  the  same  helps  that  men  are. 
He  was  a  man  in  all  conditions ;  and  his  experience  partook,  step  by 
step,  of  that  universal  experience  of  man  which  does  not  imply  sin,  but 


THE  EIQEEB  SPIRITUAL  LIFE.  223 

only  limitation  or  weakness.  It  indicates  also  the  elaboration  of  latent 
power.  This  power  of  the  Spirit  that  rested  upon  Christ  seemed  to 
sit  over  that  which  was  in  him  before.  It  brought  forth  no  new  ele- 
ments, but  it  brought  out  the  divine  element  that  existed  previously. 
It  was  as  the  sun,  which  is  not  created  nor  augmented,  but  which, 
when  the  clouds  are  driven  away  from  his  face,  shines  with  a  power 
that  he  did  not  before  have.  This  elaboration  and  enfranchisement  of 
power  was  the  result  of  spiritual  influence  from  above.  It  was  pre- 
figured at  his  baptism  by  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  like  a  dove 
resting  upon  him.  It  was  realized  in  part  from  that  time ;  but  in  full 
it  was  disclosed  at  only  about  the  beginning  of  the  last  year  of  his 
ministry.  In  consequence  of  this,  he  performed  more  work,  he  exerted 
more  influence,  in  tliese  twelve  months  than  in  the  whole  of  his  fore- 
going life. 

Interesting  as  a  study  in  the  life  of  Christ,  it  becomes  even  more  so 
in  its  connections  with  ourselves — with  the  whole  sphere  and  operation 
and  possibilities  of  the  human  mind.  For  a  like  experience  will  be 
traced  in  the  apostles'  lives.  Their  call  and  adhesion  to  Christ  was  to 
take  a  very  low  moral  state.  One  is  led  to  marvel,  in  reading 
the  account  of  the  gathering  of  Christ's  disciples,  why  he  selected 
such  men,  from  such  quarters,  and  such  regions.  Nor  do  I  think 
that  we  can  give  any  distinct  answer  to  this.  In  many  obvious 
respects  there  were  men  superior  to  them  in  Palestine,  who  might  have 
been  had  at  his  beck.  Nor  do  I  understand,  nor  think  that  I  under- 
stand, from  the  words  of  Scripture  which  are  recorded  concerning 
them,  why  he  first  selected  the  particular  kind  of  men  that  he  did,  to  be 
his  companions  and  disci[)les.  But  I  can  see  that  they  were  afterwards 
fitted  for  their  mission  by  their  ultimate  susceptibility  to  the  disclos- 
ures of  the  S[)irit,  which  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the  mere  posses- 
sion of  present  talent,  or  mere  moral  cultivation.  It  is  evident  that  he 
selected  them,  not  for  the  hours  in  which  he  was  to  be  with  them,  but 
for  their  after-work,  which,  when  the  Sj)irit  should  have  descended 
upon  them  like  a  dove,  they  were  to  perform. 

Nor  did  the  example  of  his  teaching,  during  the  time  of  his  so- 
journ, remove  from  them  their  Jewish  prejudices,  nor  in  any  way  in- 
duct them  into  the  spirit  or  truth  of  Christ.  At  the  time  of  his  death 
the  discii)les  were  but  very  little  advanced,  if  any,  except  in  their  per- 
sonal afluction  for  him,  beyond  Nicodemus,  or  other  devout  and  spirit- 
ual-minded Jews,  though  they  had  companied  with  him. 

After  his  resurrection  he  did  not  send  them  out  upon  their  mission 
immediately.  There  was  something  yet  waited  for  and  wanting.  He 
commanded  them  to  wait  in  Jerusalem  for  the  Spu-it.  If  you  will  turn 
to  the  twenty -fourth  chapter  of  Luke,  you  will-find  this  stated  emphati- 
cally : 


224  TEE  HIGHER  SPIRITUAL  LIFE. 

"Behold,  I  send  the  promise  of  my  Father  upon  you:  but  tarry  ye  in  the 
city  of  Jerusalem,  until  ye  be  endued  with  power  from  on  high." 

This  becomes  very  significant  when  it  is  taken  in  connection  with 
the  history  of  Christ  himself,  which  I  have  just  been  passing  over. 

A  longer  account  of  this  is  given  in  the  first  chapter  of  Acts : 
"  And  being  assembled  together  with  them,  Jesus  commanded  them  that 
they  should  not  depart  from  Jerusalem,  but  wait  for  the  promise  of  the 
Father,  which,  saith  he,  ye  have  heard  of  me.  For  John  truly  baptized  with 
water;  but  ye  shall  be  baptized  with  the  Holy  Ghost  not  many  days  hence. 
When  they  therefore  were  come  together,  they  asked  of  him,  saying.  Lord, 
wilt  thou  at  this  time  restore  again  the  kingdom  to  Israel?  And  he  said 
unto  them,  It  is  not  for  you  to  know  the  times  or  the  seasons  which  the 
Father  has  put  in  his  own  power.  But  ye  shall  receive  power  after  that  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  come  upon  you :  and  ye  shall  be  witnesses  unto  me,  both  in 
Jerusalem,  and  in  all  Judaea,  and  in  Samaria,  and  unto  the  uttermost  parts 
of  the  earth." 

You  will  observe,  then,  that  after  their  instruction,  and  their  resi- 
dence with  Christ,  and  after  his  death  and  resurrection,  he  did  not 
regard  them  as  qualified  to  go  forth  as  disciples,  but  told  them  to 
stay  in  Jerusalem  until  some  other  great  change  should  come  upon 
them.  And  he  declared  what  that  change  should  be — power  fi'om  on 
high  ;  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

And  then  came  the  pentecostal  experience  which  I  have  read  as 
the  opening  service  of  this  morning.  The  result  of  this  ■«  as  that  these 
men  were  transformed.  There  seemed  to  rest  upon  them,  under  cir- 
cumstances of  great  irapressiveness,  a  sign  of  internal,  divine  power. 
And  from  that  moment  they  were  changed,  so  that  every  one  feels 
that  they  were  different  from  what  they  had  been  before.  We  regard 
them  as  having  been  good  men  before,  though  they  were  very  ordi- 
nary men,  with  all  human  weaknesses  ;  but  from  this  hour  the  dis- 
ciples rose  up  to  the  magnitude  of  extraordinary  men.  Wherever 
they  went,  they  were  endowed  with  a  power  from  on  high  ;  from  before 
each  obstacles  disappeared;  and  they  became  chiefs  and  princes  among 
men,  and  to  a  degree  that  you  cannot  account  for  by  any  natural  facul- 
ties or  natural  endowments,  nor  any  education,  nor  any  advantageous 
circumstances  into  which  they  were  thrown.  And  this  change  was 
preeminent ;  and  it  transformed  their  characters  by  heightening  every 
virtue,  and  by  lowering  every  defect.  It  gave  them  a  power  over 
other  men,  both  of  speech  and  action,  of  which  there  was  no  sus- 
picion up  to  this  time. 

So,  then,  these  two  facts  stand  apparent  on  the  threshold :  First, 
that  our  Saviour  remained,  as  it  were,  a  long  time  in  a  probationary 
state,  and  entered  upon  his  ministry  at  last  in  the  power  of  the  Spirit ; 
and  second,  that  after  he  had  finished  his  career,  and  was  about  to 
ascend  to  heaven,  he  told  his  disciples  not  to  enter  at  once  upon 
their  life-work,  but  to  wait :  they  were  to  wait  for  the  same  thing, 


TEE  mo  HER  SPIRITUAL  LIFE.  225 

namely,  The  Holy  Ghost.  At  last  it  descended  in  an  appointed 
though  unexpected  way.  And  they  were  clothed,  as  Christ  before 
them  had  been,  with  a  new  energy,  a  new  efficiency;  and  they  went  out 
into  their  life-work  through  that  blazing  portal  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

But  did  these  spiritual  dynamics  slop  with  the  apostles?  Were 
they  special  to  the  Master,  and  to  his  immediate  servants'?  Or  were 
they  regarded  as  a  part  of  universal  Christian  experience  ?  That  is 
the  question  that  connects  it  with  us.  Was  this  effluence  of  the  Divine 
Spirit,  and  this  exaltation  of  the  whole  nature,  something  apostolic  and 
official,  designed  for  their  especial  work  ;  or  was  it  universal,  and  as 
much  designed  for  you  and  for  me  as  for  them? 

We  are  not  left  in  doubt  as  to  what  they  themselves  thought  on 
this  matter.  Peter  said,  at  the  day  of  Pentecost,  immediately  after 
they  came  under  this  new  power, 

"  Repent  and  be  baptized  every  one  of  you  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ 
for  the  remission  of  ains,  and  ye  shall  receive  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 

Speaking  under  its  first  influence  himself,  he  by  implication  de- 
clared it  to  be  nothing  special  to  himself.  He  declared  that  it  was 
the  common  experience  to  be  expected  among  Christians.  And  that 
afterwards  it  was  general,  we  are  not  left  in  any  doubt : 

"  And  it  came  to  pass,  that  while  Apollos  was  at  Corinth,  Paul  having 
passed  through  the  upper  coasts,  came  to  Ephesus ;  and  finding  certain  dis- 
ciples, he  said  unto  them,  Have  ye  received  the  Holy  Ghost  smce  ye  be- 
lieved?" 

You  perceive  that  the  acts  of  believing  and  adhesion  to  Christ 
were  one  thing ;  and  he  expected  that  it  would  be  followed  by  a  great 
disclosure  of  spiritual  force  in  them.     So  he  asked  them, 

"  Have  ye  received  the  Holy  Ghost  since  ye  believed  ?  and  they  said  unto 
him.  We  have  not  so  much  as  heard  whether  there  be  any  Holy  Ghost." 

Men  were  taken  to  be  Chiistians  without  being  very  orthodox  in 

those  days.     It  M'as  not  considered  that  doctrinal  knowledge  was  so 

indispensable  to  the  evidence  of  the  work  of  God  on  the  soul. 

"And  he  said  unto  them.  Unto  what  then  were  ye  baptized?  And  they 
said,  Unto  John's  baptism." 

And  yet  they  were  disciples,  and  wei'e  consorting  with  the  Chris- 
tian disciples. 

"  Then  said  Paul,  John  verily  baptized  with  the  baptism  of  repentance, 
saying  unto  the  people,  that  they  should  believe  on  him  which  sliould  come 
after  him,  that  is,  on  Christ  Jesus.  When  they  heard  this  they  were  bap- 
tized in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  And  when  Paul  had  laid  his  hands  upon 
them,  the  Holy  Ghost  came  on  them,  and  they  spake  with  tongues,  and 
prophesied.    And  all  the  men  were  about  twelve." 

Another  scene  shows  a  similar  work  : 

"  Now  when  the  apostles  which  were  at  Jerusalem  heard  that  Samaria 
had  received  the  word  of  God,  they  sent  them  Peter  and  John ;  who,  when 
they  were  come  down,  prayed  for  them  that  they  might  receive  the  Holy 


226  •  THE  HIGHER  SPIRITUAL  LIFE. 

Gliost:  (for  as,  yet  he  was  fallen  upon  none  of  them  :  only  tliey  were  bap- 
tized in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus.)  Then  laid  they  their  hands  on  them, 
and  they  received  the  Holy  Ghost.  And  when  Simon  saw  that  through  lay- 
ing on  of  the  apostles'  hands  the  Holy  Ghost  was  given,  he  offered  them 
money,  saying,  Give  me  also  this  power,  that  on  whomsoever  I  lay  hands, 
he  may  receive  the  Holy  Ghost." 

You  will  observe  that  this  was  not  a  clandestine,  nor  a  merely 
interior  and  imaginative  result,  but  that  the  laying  on  of  the  apostles' 
hands  and  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  was  so  open  and  so  obvious 
that  a  sorcerer,  regarding  it  as  one  step  in  the  occult  science,  one  de- 
gree in  the  direction  of  the  black  art,  was  content  to  offer  and  pay  the 
customary  fee,  whatever  it  was,  that  he  might  take  that  step. 

I  do  not  pause  to  speak  of  the  moral  aspects  of  this,  but  simply  to 
call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  as  Christ  himself  returned  with  the 
power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  Galilee ;  and  as,  at  the  Pentecost,  they 
made  the  offer  of  it  to  all  disciples ;  so  we  find  traces  in  the  early 
Church  which  go  to  show  that  when  they  became  Christians,  and  the 
apostles  laid  their  hands  upon  them,  they  received  this  special  power 
over  and  above  mere  ordinary  endowments,  so  that  men  saw  it,  and 
coveted  it,  and  tried  to  buy  it : — I  call  your  attention  to  these  facts  as 
disclosing  a  great  interior  economy  in  Christianity,  which  is  too  much 
neglected  in  modern  times. 

In  every  age,  I  remark  again,  there  have  been  those  to  whom  these 
disclosures  have  been  made.  Eminent  moral  natures  have  long  wrought 
righteousness,  and  yet  come  to  the  period  in  which  suddenly  they  have 
been  taken  up  into  a  larger  libertj^,  into  a  sphere  of  greater  power, 
into  a  condition  of  spiiitual  influence,  of  which  their  past  life  afforded 
no  sort  of  intimation.  This  was  preeminently  the  case  with  John 
Wesley,  who  labored  years  and  years,  as  he  regarded  it,  in  bondage  ; 
and  who  at  last  came  out  into  the  power  of  the  Spirit.  It  was  the 
case  of  a  great  many  men  in  the  Roman  Church,  in  its  earlier  days. 
Perhaps  it  may  be  so  still ;  for  I  believe  there  are  a  great  many  pre- 
eminently divine  n;itures  in  that  church.  It  has  been  so  in  all  churches. 
Here  and  there,  there  have  been  men  who  have  gone  through  pre- 
cisely this  experience.  Not  only  so,  there  have  been  periods  in  which 
the  whole  Church  at  large  seems  to  have  been  caught  up  out  of  a 
lower  sphere,  to  have  been  inspired  and  lifted  into  an  unusual  region 
of  spiritual  influence,  and  to  have  continued  there,  and  to  have  exerted 
a  power  which,  for  generations  before,  had  failed  from  the  earth. 

Lastly,  many  are  now  living,  and  are  distinctly  conscious  that  this 
same  impulse  and  this  same  clothing  of  extraordinary  power  remain 
on  earth.  There  be  many  who  have  been  carried  from  a  very  low 
state  of  obedience  and  of  faith  and  of  hope  up  into  a  condition  of  great 
joy,  and  of  great  affluence,  and  of  great  influence. 


THE  HIGHER  SPIRITUAL  LIFE.  227 

Here  is  the  brief  concatenation  of  facts,  as  they  stand  connected 
with  this  pecuUar  and  extraordinary  influence  of  the  Divine  Spirit 
upon  the  human  soul ;  and  in  view  of  it,  I  remark,  first,  that  while 
God  employs  all  men's  ordinary  faculties,  and  in  their  ordinary  states, 
in  the  degree  of  power  which  they  attain  under  the  stimulation  of 
society  and  of  material  things  in  nature,  there  is  in  reserve  a  reoion 
of  life  in  the  soul,  and  of  experience,  transcending  immeasurably  ordi- 
nary life,  in  exaltation,  in  happiness,  and  in  capacity  of  power.  It  is 
not  to  be  supposed  that  the  ordinary,  or  what  is  generally  called  the 
normal  condition  of  men  in  their  earthly  state  is  unnatui-al  or  useless. 
God  employs  it ;  but  it  is  so  much  lower  than  what  man  is  competent 
to  experience,  that  he  who  has  had  only  the  inspiration  which  comes 
through  natural  material  laws  developed  on  the  globe,  or  developed  in 
society,  among  social  instructions  and  material  inspirations  or  stimula- 
tions, does  not  know  what  he  is  ;  does  not  understand  what  is  the 
power  held  in  reserve  in  his  own  nature.  For  there  is  a  capacity  of 
unfolding,  there  is  a  nature  that  inspiration  can  bring  out,  which  so 
transcends  the  ordinary  developments  that  every  faculty  has  a  reach 
that  you  have  no  suspicion  of. 

If  an  ignorant  man  had  a  present  of  a  telescope,  and,  ignorantly 
taking  it  up,  he  should  open  the  eye-piece  and  the  object  glass  to 
look  through  it,  and  see,  if  at  all,  only  in  a  blurred  way,  he  would 
think  perhaps  because  he  had  been  told  so,  that  it  was  a  very  valu- 
able and  curious  instrument ;  but  how  little  would  he  know  of  it,  un- 
til, under  instruction,  he  had  drawn  it  out  joint  by  joint  to  the  true 
focus,  and  then  put  his  eye  to  the  glass  !  And  what  a  horizon  could 
he  now  sweep !  How  different  would  the  glass  be  to  him  from  what  it 
was  before ! 

Men's  faculties  are  telescopic.  Used  in  their  lower  state,  they  are, 
as  it  were,  undrawn  out.  They  are  capable  of  being  brought  to  a  con- 
dition in  which  they  will  be  a  hundred  times  more  than  they  are  in 
their  ordinary  and  spiritually  undeveloped  condition.  It  is  the  proper 
state  of  the  Christian  to  rise  higher  than  this  common,  ordinary,  and, 
if  you  please  so  to  call  it,  normal  state  of  faculty. 

The  consciousness  of  this  transcends  all  other  evidences  of  the 
divine  life.  While  some  men  are  perpetually  seeking  to  measure  them- 
selves, to  know  whether  they  are  in  the  foith,  there  are  those  all  around 
about  them  who  scarcely  ever  propose  the  question  to  themselves.  For 
they  are  lifted  up  into  that  region  of  moral  consciousness  which 
abounds  and  superabounds  with  the  evidence  that  they  are  the  Lord's. 

"  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart ;  for  they  shall  see  God. 
•*  He  endured  as  seeing  Him  who  is  invisible." 

There  are  those  who  are  no  more  doubtful  of  their  estate  than  they 


228  TEE  HIGHER  SPIRITUAL  LIFE. 

are  of  the  sliining  of  the  sun;  and  then-  evidences  are  not  obscured  by 
any  obliquity  of  their  orbit,  or  jar,  or  intermission.  On  tlie  whole,  they 
abide  in  a  state  of  moral  inspii-ation  which  is  its  own  evidence,  com. 
pared  with  which  no  other  evidence  can  be  mentioned.  And  out  of  this 
comes  a  facility  for  work  wliich  shows  it  to  be  the  normal  though  the 
ideal  and  teleologic  condition  of  men's  higher  nature.  How  many  such 
Christians  there  are,  God  only  knows.  It  is,  however,  enough  for  us  to 
be  sure  that  this  is  possible ;  that,  as  in  the  case  of  the  master.  He  rose 
to  a  nobler  disclosure  than  that  which  belonged  to  the  earlier  life;  that 
as  the  apostles  rose  into  a  sphere  of  glorious  influence ;  that  as  the  early 
disciples  were  brought  through  the  gate  of  repentance  into  faith,  and 
then  through  faith  into  the  blaze  of  a  later  experience,  which  was  called 
tlie  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost  upon  them ;  as  in  every  age  since  men 
have  found  that  when  they  began  their  Christian  life  and  were  work- 
ing in  a  spiritual  morality  they  had  only  begun,  and  that  there  was 
something  yet  higher  and  yet  more  joyful  and  yet  more  blessed  above  ; 
as  there  are  still  among  us  in  all  churches,  God  be  thanked,  here  and 
there,  instances  of  these  natures  that  have  blossomed  into  higher  life  ; 
and  as  all  these  things  are  brought  to  us  not  as  evidences  of  preroga- 
tive, nor  of  special  fjxvor,  but  simply  as  siDecimens  of  what  is  the 
power  of  the  human  soul  in  the  divine  nature,  they  become  immensely 
influential,  both  upon  the  imagination  and  upon  the  reason,  and  ought 
to  be  influential  ujjon  the  life,  as  well.  For  the  noblest  part  of  men's 
nature,  if  this  be  true,  is  not  developed — or  is  only  very  feebly  devel- 
oped. 

We  see  that  men  live  all  their  life  long  without  developing  the 
skill  that  is  in  the  hand.  There  has  been  many  and  many  a  man  who 
was  competent  to  be  an  artist,  but  who  died  without  a  single  work.  It 
was  an  undeveloped  talent.  There  has  been  many  and  many  a  great 
mathematician  who  has  done  nothing,  either  tiiat  he  was  conscious  of, 
or  that  was  apparent  to  others.  He  had  a  power,  but  it  was  undevel- 
oped. The  reason,  not  only  of  individuals,  but  of  generations  of  men, 
has  been  undeveloped.  There  have  been  great  gifts  of  power  treas- 
ured up  in  every  age,  and  in  all  directions,  which  have  never  come  to 
the  light.  And  so  it  is  still.  Not  one  in  a  million  of  those  who  have 
great  natural  power,  comes  to  it  in  this  life.  Men  are  as  tropical  trees 
are  in  northern  climes.  The  summer  is  too  short,  and  the  sun  is  too 
cold,  and  the  soil  is  too  shallow  for  them.  And  though  they  grow  for 
a  time,  they  must  be  taken  up  and  housed  in  winter,  and  set  out  again 
in  summer.  And  the  flower,  the  fruit,  and  especially  the  full  stature, 
is  never  to  be  seen  except  in  their  own  native  clime. 

Now,  men  are  living  in  this  world ;  and  they  might  m  one  way  or 
another  be  educated  a  great  deal  more  highly  than  they  are  j  but  that 


THE  HIGHER  SPIRITUAL  LIFE.  229 

is  not  the  whole  of  what  I  mean.  I  mean  that  while  you  may  increase 
and  strengthen  by  normal  methods  the  ordinary  faculties,  there  is  a 
point  at  which  the  soul  may  break  through  into  an  absolutely  different 
sphere  ;  or  its  moral  faculties  may  be  so  inflamed  with  a  heavenly 
power  that  this  addition  may  transform  the  whole  nature  of  the  man, 
and  give  to  all  his  other  faculties  influences  and  potencies  such  as 
would  not  otherwise  be  suspected.  We  are  living  out  of  ourselves, 
under  ourselves,  without  ourselves ;  and  no  man  has  in  him  the  power 
to  develop  his  strongest,  his  divinest  self.  And  that  is  the  thing 
which  I  believe  Christ  meant  when  he  said,  "No  man  can  come  unto 
me,  except  the  Father  which  hath  sent  me  draw  him."  There  is  a 
power  of  a  man's  nature  whose  inflammation  requires  the  direct  fire  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  of  God.  But  when  that  lapses  and  falls  upon  men,  it 
does  kindle  in  them  an  enthusiasm,  an  exaltation,  an  intuition,  a  spirit 
of  prophesy,  and  a  spirit  of  power,  which  in  some  natures  goes  toward 
the  miraculous — and  I  do  not  know  but  it  goes  to  it  in  our  day  just  as 
much  as  in  the  older  days  ;  for  I  believe  that  the  upper  nature  of  man 
is  powerful  over  the  lower  one,  and  that  a  miracle  is  nothing  but 
the  supremacy  of  spiritual  forces  acting  upon  natural  forces.  It 
is  not  against  the  course  of  nature  ;  it  is  the  regulation  of  na- 
ture ;  and  it  is  the  order  of  nature  that  the  higher  should  control 
the  lower,  and  that  the  divine  should  always  control  the  physical 
and  material.  And  I  do  not  know  why  there  should  not  be  miracles 
to-day  just  as  much  as  there  were  in  the  apostles'  times,  except 
for  the  fact  that  the  comparative  irregularities  of  miraculous  de- 
velopment are  not  so  much  needed,  as  society  grows  up  with  regular  in- 
struments and  into  regular  processes.  As  respects  the  abstract  ques- 
tion, I  do  not  know  why  there  might  not  be  miracles  in. the  church  to- 
day, and  why  those  who  are  inspired  of  God  might  not  have  just  the 
same  potency  over  the  mountain  and  over  the  tree  as  when  Christ  said, 
"  If  ye  have  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard-seed,  ye  shall  say  unto  this 
mountain.  Remove  hence  to  yonder  place  ;  and  it  shall  remove."  And 
before  the  final  pentecost  comes,  I  believe  there  will  be  works  which 
will  be  equivalent  to  the  primitive  miracles  in  the  Christian  Church. 
I  remark,  again,  that  even  when  among  Christians  one's  life  is  quick- 
ened, it  is  not  ripened,  ordinarily.  We  come  to  the  twilight ;  but  how 
few  of  us  ever  come  to  the  sunlight — to  the  light  of  the  Sun  of  Right- 
eousness !  We  come  a  certain  way  along;  but  how  few  there  are  who 
are  taught,  or  who  try  to  reach,  or  wha,  without  trying,  stumble  upon 
that  higher  life !  When  it  comes  to  men,  how  seldom  does  it  come  be- 
cause they  read  it  in  the  word  of  God,  and  see  that  it  is  their  privilege ! 
These  experiences  are  almost  always  found  out  just  as  mines  of  gold  are 
discovered.  Men  pull  up  a  shrub  or  a  root  and  see  the  shining  sand,  and 


230  TEE  HIGHER  SPIRITUAL  LIFE. 

look,  and  find  that  there  is  gold  there  !  They  did  not  think  there  was 
gold  there,  but  discovering  traces  of  it  by  accident,  they  go  and  search 
for  it,  and  find  it.  So  in  building  a  mill-race,  the  modern  discovery  of 
gold  in  California  was  made.  And  among  Christians,  of  those  who 
have  this  wonderful  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God  resting  upon  them, 
some  found  it  in  prisons,  not  expecting  to  find  it  there  ;  and  some  found 
it  after  long  sickness.  Driven  from  step  to  step,  and  quickened,  and 
instructed  and  exalted,  they  have  found  it  at  last  at  the  end  of  a  long 
disciplinary  course.  Sometimes  men  have  found  it  in  health  and  power 
while  working  among  their  fellow  men,  held  on  from  step  to  step, 
risen  higher  and  higher,  and  at  last  broken  out  into  it.  Sometimes 
men  have  found  it  in  the  midst  of  great  revivals  of  religion,  when, 
under  circumstances  of  universal  quickening,  their  natures,  in  sympathy 
with  the  divine  nature,  were  caught,  and  were  carried  up  into  the 
fullness  of  this  state. 

Alas  !  that  men  should  come  to  it,  if  I  may  so  say,  by  these  divine 
accidents ;  that  they  should  find  it  accidentally  ;  that  it  should  not  be 
understood  that  this  is  the  apparatus  of  every  man's  soul ;  that  every 
man  should  not  point  his  Christian  experience  right  toward  it,  and  feel 
it,  and  live  in  it  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  that  he  should  not 
double  and  quadruple  his  power,  that  he  may  become  victorious  both 
over  himself  and  the  world  that  is  round  about  him.  It  belongs  to  the 
divinity  of  the  mind.  It  is  susceptible  of  being  united  again  to  tlie 
nature  of  God,  of  which  it  partakes.  It  is  the  mind's  power  of  holy 
inflammation ;  it  is  its  power  of  luminousness  ;  it  is  its  power  of  inter- 
pretation, precision,  intuition.  It  is  a  part  of  the  mind.  It  is  not  an}-- 
thing  abnormal.  It  is  unusual ;  it  is  ulterior,  it  comes  last,  and  is  least 
frequently  found;  but  it  belongs  to  the  mind  just  as  much  as  the  body 
belongs  to  our  existence  here.  And  it  is  the  right  of  everybody  to 
have  it,  and  to  seek  for  it.  Some  will  find  it  by  shorter  ways  than 
others.  It  is  with  this  as  with  all  talents,  which  are  difi'erently  meas- 
ured out  to  men.  And  so  this  capacity  of  inward  spiritual  exaltation, 
this,  if  I  may  so  call  it,  divine  constitution,  varies  in  quantity  and 
power  in  difi'erent  persons.  But  I  believe  that  it  inheres  in  all.  There 
is  no  man  who  may  not  live  by  faith — that  is,  by  the  invisible  sense  of 
things — not  by  sight ;  not  by  outward  law  ;  not  by  scientific  rules. 

I  remark,  once  more,  that  the  working-power  of  Christians,  while  it 
includes  knowledge,  and  tact,  and  ordinary  social  influence,  and  the  va- 
rious moral  machinery  of  instruction  and  organization ;  the  working- 
power  of  Christians,  while  it  includes  the  money-power  and  knowledge- 
power  of  this  world,  yet  has  distinctively  power  in  another  du'ection. 
For  all  these  outward  elements  of  power  the  unconverted  man  can 
wield  as  well  as  we.      That  which  is  distinctive  in  Chi-istian  working 


THE  HIGHER  SPIRITUAL  LIFE.  231  , 

is  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Or  rather,  it  is  the  working  of  a  man's 
mind  after  it  has  been  educated  and  enlightened  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
That  condition  of  soul  which  brings  out  the  new  force,  and  which 
makes  it  a  mirror  held  up  to  God,  with  tlie  power  of  reflecting  back 
upon  the  sight  of  men  the  divine  image  and  the  divine  nature — that  is 
the  power  by  which  men  are  to  transcend  all  ordinary  experiences,  and 
perform  marvelous  works.  And  I  think  that  if  you  comj^are  the  fruit- 
fulness  of  one  with  another,  while  something  may  be  due  to  superior 
activity,  and  something  to  ordinary  worldly  causations,  yet  there  be 
multitudes  of  men  whose  usefulness  cannot  be  accounted  for  on  any 
other  princij)le  than  that  they  have  received  this  gift  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  that  this  gift  makes  more  of  them  than  is  made  of  men  who 
are  ten  times  their  superiors  in  natural  endowments. 

There  was  no  great  natural  capacity  in  Hailan  Page ;  and  yet  he 
was  an  apostle ;  and  his  life  has  quickened  the  lives  of  tens  of  thou- 
sands since  he  has  been  gone.  Being  dead,  he  yet  speaks.  But  he 
had  the  Holy  Ghost  rising  upon  him.  Tliere  are  men  who  say  but 
little ;  and  yet  they  give  you  a  new  ideal.  They  shine  as  stars  in  the 
heavens.  And  there  can  be  no  accounting  for  it,  except  on  the  ground 
of  the  dynamic  influence  ot  spiritual  life  and  spiritual  power  in  this 
world.  There  are  men  who  stand  in  the  center  of  circles,  and  all  rise 
up  and  call  them  blessed  ;  and  nobody  can  tell  why,  except  that  they 
bring  heaven  near,  and  bring  invisible  things  near,  and  gain  faith,  and 
strengthen  their  moral  tendencies,  and  see  God,  and  have  the  power 
to  reflect  what  they  see,  upon  other  persons. 

It  is  these  men  who  have  the  higher  region  of  their  soul  enlight- 
ened by  the  spirit  of  God,  that  do  the  most  for  other  men ;  that  set 
aside  skepticism ;  that  convince  the  unconvinced;  that  penetrate  the 
unconverted  through  with  a  new  and  eternal  sense,  both  of  their  lacks,' 
and  of  their  possibilities  and  hojies.  It  is  these  men  who  are  joined 
together,  and  who  receive  their  power  of  life  and  of  working  from 
God,  that,  after  all,  are  the  lights  of  the  world. 

Once  more.  If  these  things  be  true  (and  I  know  not  how  we  shall 
set  them  aside),  we  see  what  is  the  direction  in  which  every  one  should 
seek  to  stand  pure.  We  are  not  to  neglect  all  ordinary  causes.  They 
are  to  be  heeded.  But  there  is  to  be  something  in  superaddition  to  all 
the  ordinary  laws  of  wisdom  and  experience.  The  heart  is  to  be 
cleansed,  vivified,  intensified,  augmented,  made  irresistible,  by  the  in- 
dwelling of  the  divine  Spirit.  And  this  is  the  reason  why,  when  men 
begin  to  call  on  God,  they  are  led  of  God  to  pray  for  the  descent  of 
that  Spirit  in  whicli  is  their  life,  and  in  which  is  their  hope.  This  is 
the  reason  why,  when  God  comes  to  communities  and  churches,  one 
of  the  first  signs  and  tokens  of  a  genuine  work  of  grace  in  any  heart, 


232  THE  HIGHER  SPIRITUAL  LIFE. 

or  in  any  church,  or  in  any  community,  is  that  men  begin  to  feel  their 
alienation  from  God.  How  weak  is  all  their  natural  power !  They 
begin  to  hunger  and  thirst  after  this  divine  illumination.  This  is  why, 
when  the  Spirit  of  God  falls  on  communities,  and  they  are  revived, 
there  is  such  light  and  joy.  For  there  is  no  state  of  such  liberty  and 
no  state  of  such  intense  satisfaction  as  that  in  which  churches,  kindled 
and  rejoicing  in  the  ingathering  of  souls,  are  mingling  together  in 
sj^iritual  communion.  And  under  the  conscious  blessing  and  in  the  full 
inspiration  of  the  household,  it  is  the  source  of  light,  it  is  the  source 
of  joy,  it  is  the  source  of  power,  and  it  is  the  indispensable  instrument 
of  victory. 

Christian  brethren,  many  of  you  are  longing  for  the  renewal  of  life. 
Many  of  you  are  laboring  and  are  praying  for  it.  Here  is  the  instru- 
ment of  your  power.  This  is  what  you  need ;  this  is  what  we  all  need 
— that  higher  life  which  comes  by  the  Spirit  of  God. 

To  this  one  point,  then,  let  every  one  of  us  concentrate  thought, 
and  will,  and  earnest  prayer.  For  God  is  more  willing  to  give  us  of  his 
Spirit  than  parents  are  to  give  bread  to  their  children  that  ask  it.  And 
that  we  do  not  have  it  in  larger  measure  is  not  because  he  withholds  it, 
but  because,  while  it  is  shining  broadly  as  the  sun,  we  are  clouded,  and 
are  shut  up,  and  the  light  that  is  sent  abroad  through  all  the  churchts 
shines  upon  us,  and  the  darkness  comprehends  it  not.  If  you  would  be 
clothed  with  new  experiences,  and  would  rejoice  with  new  life  in  your 
households ;  if  with  all  your  cares  and  burdens  you  would  have  power 
given  you  to  bear  them  with  transcendent  joy  and  resignation,  find 
that  power  by  enkindling  in  your  souls  a  higher  sphere  of  thought,  and 
and  a  nobler  experience.  Rise  into  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost; 
into  the  communion  of  the  unseen  world ;  into  the  realization  of  the 
'  life  to  come  ;  into  the  power  of  God.  Then  you  shall  come  forth  re- 
joicing, powerful  beyond  any  former  measm-e  of  things ;  and  at  death 
you  shall  pass  from  glory  to  glory. 

May  God  grant  to  us  all  this  sweetest,  this  divinest  gift,  the  power 
of  the  Spirit. 


THE  HIGHER  SPIRITUAL  LIFE.  233' 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMOK 

Our  Heavenly  Father,  we  draw  near  to  thee,  encouraged  by  thy  words 
of  grace  and  of  mercy.  We  remember  the  multitude  that  have  trusted  in 
thy  name  in  days  gone  by,  and  have  been  rescued  and  comforted,  and  made 
victorious,  at  last,  over  time  and  the  world,  and  are  at  rest.  We  remember 
our  own  experiences.  How  often  thou  hast  brought  us  succor  and  consola- 
tion! And  all  our  life  is  a  testimony  to  thy  goodness.  For,  although  WQ 
have  not  plucked  the  best  fruits  that  are  within  our  reach,  yet  we  have  been 
nourished,  we  have  been  sustained  by  thy  grace,  more  than  we  have  reason 
to  think.  Thou  hast  done  exceeding  abundantly  more  for  us  than  we  have 
asked  or  thought.  Thou  hast  not  restrained  thy  mercy  by  the  measure  of 
our  petition.  Thou  hast  not  merely  filled  that  which  we  have  asked  to  be 
filled,  but  thou  hast  given  overflowing  measure.  Thy  paths  drop  fatness. 
Wherever  thou  dost  walk,  thou  leavest  on  the  way  tokens  of  thine  abun- 
dance, thine  overflowing  mercy.  And  thy  goodness  is  our  hope.  For  we 
are  ourselves  of  the  earth,  earthy,  constricted  by  selfishness,  intemperate 
by  reason  of  pride,  and  full  yet  of  the  lower  life  that  wars  against  the 
spirit,  and  will  not  be  subdued  thereby. ^  We  yet  are  ignorant  of  spiritual 
things,  being  wiser  in  our  generatiori  in  the  things  pertaining  to  this  life, 
than  in  the  spirit  and  in  things  pertaining  to  the  life  that  is  to  come.  We 
rejoice  that  thou  dost  not  give  us  up  by  reason  of  our  infirmity,  nor  by  rea- 
son of  our  obstinacy,  but  that  with  long-suffering  kindness  and  mercy  inex- 
haustible thou  art  still  pursuing  our  good,  and  art  better  to  us  than  we  are 
to  ourselves ;  knowing  how  to  do  us  good  as  we  do  not.  Thou  art  never 
weary  in  fulfilling  thine  own  desires;  and  all  that  we  experience  is  the 
shadow  and  token  of  that  which  is  to  come.  It  doth  not  yet  appear  what 
we  shall  be,  nor  doth  it  yet  appear  what  thou  art,  nor  what  thine  adminis- 
tration of  love  in  the  other  life  shall  be.  All  the  measures  of  this  life  are 
incompetent,  all  the  conceptions  of  this  life,  whatever  they  may  be,  are  still 
afar  off  from  the  truth;  and  thou  art  better,  and  thou  art  more  full  of  joy 
for  those  that  are  united  to  thee,  and  heaven  is  better,  and  the  estate  of  the 
blest  is  better,  than  it  hath  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive.  And 
all  the  measures  that  are  fitted  to  our  lower  estate,  are  better  fitted  to  us 
than  the  excellency  of  the  knowledge  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus.  We  rejoice 
that  we  shall  not  be  disappointed,  if  through  the  grace  of  God  our  feet  shall 
yet  stand  in  Zion  and  before  God,  Thy  mercy  will  not  be  severer  and  more 
limited  than  we  thought ;  thy  bound  will  not  be  less  ample  ;  the  sweetness 
of  joy  will  not  be  less  than  we  thought,  but  transcending  all  concep- 
tion. And  we  shall  seem  to  ourselves,  in  our  earthly  estate,  as  little  chil- 
dren are  in  their  stature  and  knowledge  to  full-grown  men.  Now  we  see 
through  a  glass,  darkly.  We  think  as  children;  we  understand  as  children ; 
but  when  we  are  become  men  we  shall  put  away  our  childish  things,  and  see 
them  in  the  unclouded  realm  of  love,  and  rejoice  in  thee,  and  be  satisfied. 
We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  unto  us,  in  all  the  strivings  and  experiences 
of  this  mortal  life,  through  which  we  pilgrim,  that  divine  illumination,  that 
Spirit,  by  which  we  shall  be  so  sanctified,  and  our  faith  so  assured,  that  we 
shall  walk  steadfastly,  going  from  step  to  step,  and  from  strength  to 
strength,  and  gain  in  joy  as  we  draw  near  to  the  promised  hour. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  upon  all  thy  servants.  Sanc- 
tify to  them  the  several  dispensations  of  thy  providence.  May  their  afflio- 
tions,  and  their  cares,  and  their  burdens  be  so  tempered  that  they  shall  work 
out  spiritual  good  to  them.  Wo  pray  that  any  who  are  in  bereavements 
and  in  deep  affliction  and  sorrow  of  heart,  may  hear  not  far  from  them  the 
comforting  voice  of  Jesus.    May  they  witness  within  thehiselvea  the  x^rea- 


234  TEE  HIGHER  SPIRITUAL  LIFE. 

ence  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  May  they  be  able  to  rejoice  even  in  spirit.  Though 
for  the  present  it  may  not  be  joyous  to  them  in  great  measure,  yet  may  they 
have  some  comfort  in  knowing  that  it  shall  work  out  the  peaceable  fruit  of 
righteousness  in  all  that  shall  have  been  exercised  thereby.  And  we  pray 
that  none  may  smite  the  hand  of  Christ  that  was  pierced  for  us,  nor  press 
away  the  cup  that  he  puts  to  our  lip.  But  like  him,  though  we  pray  for 
deliverance,  may  our  prayer  be,  "  Thy  will,  not  ours,  be  done." 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  in  their  households,  and  see  in 
every  heart  that  is  lifted  up  to-day  the  love  and  the  desire  that  are  felt  for 
others,  and  the  supplications  that  are  made  for  them.  For  is  it  not  well- 
pleasing  in  thy  sight  that  we  pray  for  others  as  well  as  for  ourselves  ? 

Hear  those  that  pray  for  their  children,  and  those  that  pray  for  their 
brothers  and  sisters,  and  those  that  pray  for  their  parents,  and  all  that  are 
praying  for  separated  and  absent  friends,  and  all  that  pray  for  the  sick.  We 
beseech  of  thee,  O  Lord,  that  the  voice  of  supplication,  and  that  the  silent 
supplications  of  every  heart  may  come  up  before  thee ;  and  in  the  sphere  of 
power,  oh  !  send  forth  answers  of  mercy. 

And  we  beseech  of  thee  tliat  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  all 
the  labors  of  this  day.  May  those  that  teach  in  our  Sunday-schools  come 
with  the  fullness  of  the  blessing  of  God  in  their  hearts ;  and  may  they  have 
given  to  them  unwonted  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

Oh!  that  thou  wouldst  shed  abroad  upon  this  congregation  thy  divine 
influence,  which  shall  lift  them  up  above  the  sphere  of  common  human 
power.  Grant  that  they  may  discern  the  great  spiritual  realm,  and  that 
they  may  live  more  and  more  in  the  spirit  of  the  heavenly  state,  and  that 
they  may  be  able,  both  by  their  works  and  by  their  invisible  influence,  to 
bring  to  l^ear  the  truths  which  belong  to  the  great  future. 

We  beseech  of  thee,  O  Lord  !  that  thou  wilt  grant  wisdom  and  fidelity  to 
these  thy  servants.  As  they  go  forth  sowing  the  seed  or  go  forth  reaping, 
alike  be  thou  with  them. 

And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless,  not  ourselves  alone,  but  all  the  churches 
that  are  united  to  us  in  the  faith  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  However  widely 
thy  churches  may  be  separated  in  outward  instruments,  may  this  common 
bond  of  love  to  God  unite  them  more  and  more. 

And  bless  the  labors  of  thy  servants  that  are  appointed  to  preach,  and  of 
all  officers,  and  all  members  of  churches  that  are  laboring  with  fidelity  in 
the  field  of  God.  And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  spread  abroad  the  Gospel 
throughout  our  land  and  throughout  all  lands. 

Draw  near,  to-day,  to  those  that  are  far  from  home,  and  dwelling  in 
darkness  for  the  sake  of  the  heathen  that  are  around  about  them.  Strengthen 
their  wisdom  and  their  faith ;  and  grant  that  they  may  see  the  labor  of  their 
soul,  and  begin  to  be  satisfied.  We  pray  forj  the  fulfillment  of  the  promises 
which  respect  this  world.  O  God|!  we  beseech  of  thee,  that  thou  wilt  over- 
rule all  those  influences  which  are  at  work ;  and  grant  that  nations  may 
rise  in  knowledge,  and  intelligence,  and  in  purity,  and  in  zeal,  and  in  fidelity 
for  the  common  welfare.  May  selfishness  of  power  cease.  May  the  cruel- 
ties of  superstition  cease.  May  men  be  banded  together  no  longer  by  the 
law  of  force.  May  they  more  and  more  learn  the  power  of  beneficence,  and 
nations,  at  length,  through  justice,  come  to  toleration  and  to  peace,  and  the 
glory  of  the  Lord  fill  the  earth.  Wilt  thou  bring  groans  and  tears  and  sor- 
rows to  an  end.  We  beseech  of  thee,  O  thou  blessed  Spirit !  bring  in  the 
peace  of  purity  and  the  gladness  of  the  latter  day.  And  may  the  whole 
earth,  at  last  redeemed,  be  a  fit  companion  for  thine  heavenly  sphere,  and 
the  new  earth,  in  which  dwelleth  righteousness,  come. 

And  to  the  Father,  and  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  evermore. 


XIV. 

The  Ground  of  Salvation. 


^  INVOCATION. 

Vouchsafe,  our  heavenly  Father,  that  spirit  of  life  and  of  love  which 
■will  quicken  whatever  in  us  is  like  thee,  and  which  will  bring  us  into  com- 
munion with  thee.  Grant,  this  morning,  that  we  may  know  our  privilege ; 
that  we  may  know  thee  to  he  our  Father;  that  our  willing  hearts,  rejoicing, 
may  cry  out,  Ahha,  Father.  And  grant  us  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  that  we 
we  are  thine.  And  may  we  take  great  delight  together  in  thy  Word ;  in  the 
truths  revealed  therein;  in  the  fellowship  of  sacred  song;  in  the  communion 
of  prayer.  And  may  the  service  of  instruction  and  of  devotion  be  profitable 
to  our  souls.    We  ask  it  for  Christ's  sake.    Amen. 

u 


THE  GROUND  OP  SALVATIOK 


"  But  God,  -vrho  is  rich  in  mercy,  for  his  great  love  wherewith  he  loved  us, 
even  when  we  were  dead  in  sins,  hath  quickened  us  together  with  Christ; 
(by  grace  ye  are  saved;)  and  hath  raised  us  up  together,  and  made  us  sit  to- 
gether in  heavenly  places  in  Christ  Jesus, — that  in  the  ages  to  come  he  might 
show  the  exceeding  riches  of  his  grace  in  his  kindness  toward  us,  through 
Christ  Jesus.  For  by  grace  are  ye  saved,  through  faith  ;  and  that  not  of 
yourselves :  it  is  the  gift  of  God."— Eph.  IL,  4-8. 


We  have  here  an  exposition  (if  it  is  to  be  found  anywhere  in  the 
Bible)  of  the  ground  of  salvation.  There  is  no  possibility,  it  seems  to 
me,  of  framing  language  broader  and  more  explicit  than  that  whicli 
here  declares  that  man's  salvation  does  not  stand  in  himself,  in  his  char- 
acter, in  his  natui-e,  in  his  desire,  and,  by  implication,  in  his  skill,  nor 
in  his  power  ;  but  that  it  stands  in  the  infinite  goodness  and  generos- 
ity of  God — that  God  saves  men  on  account  of  what  is  in  Him^  and  not 
on  account  of  what  is  in  them. 

"  For  by  grace  are  ye  saved,  through  faith;  and  tJiatnot  of  yourselves :  it 
is  the  gift  of  God." 

A  gift  is  some  object  of  value  transferred  from  one  to  another,  as  a 
sign  and  token  of  good  will  or  friendship.  A  simple  gift  is  neither 
earned  nor  deserved.  It  carries  with  it  no  idea  of  commerce,  and  no 
idea  of  equity.  It  carries  exclusively  the  idea  of  friendship,  of  kind- 
ness. But  sometimes  a  gift  may  be  bestowed  upon  persons  who  are  m 
great  need  of  it,  and  who  even  solicit  it  on  account  of  their  need.  Then 
it  is  called  a  benefaction,  or,  more  commonly,  a  charity.  And  if  it  be 
Bomething  given  to  earnest  and  importunate  solicitation,  it  is  called  a 
dole.  But  where  a  gift  is  presented  to  one  not  altogether  as  an  act  of 
friendship  nor  as  a  charity  ;  where  it  is  presented  to  one  Avho  by  his  spe- 
cial character  and  conduct  has  no  right  to  expect  it ;  who  has  in  some 
sense  fortified  himself  against  the  access  of  such  a  gift,  then  it  is  called  a 
grace,  in  the  language  of  the  New  Testament.  A  great  kindness, 
then,  shown  to  an  undeserving  person,  is  a  grace  ;  that  is,  it  is  a  o-ift 
not  deserved  by  any  conditions  which  exist  between  the  giver  and  the 
receiver  of  friendship,  and  so  is  a  gift  not  to  be  expected. 

Sunday  Mor.-tixo,  Dec.  4,  1870.    Lesson  :    IIomans    V.    Hymns  (Plymouth  ColleotlonJ ; 
ITos.  209, 213, 2:3. 


236  THE  GROUND  OF  SALVATION. 

Now,  the  gift  of  eternal  life,  conferred  through  the  Lord  Jesua 
Christ  upon  men,  is  said  to  be  both  of  these  ;  namely,  a  gift  and  a  grace. 
And  there  is  something  affecting,  when  it  has  once  been  called  a  grace, 
that  it  should  also  be  called  a  gift.  For  as  grace  implies  ill-desert,  so 
when  a  great  favor  is  conferred,  and  it  is  called  a  gift,  the  implication  is, 
that  the  ill-desert  is  forgotten,  and  that  the  parties  are  treated  as  though 
they  were  on  foundations  of  common  friendship,  unsullied  and  un- 
forfeited.  And  in  order  to  make  this  stronger,  the  apostle  calls  it  a 
free  gift.  A  gift  is  free  anyhow;  but  here  is  brought  to  it  that 
central  conception  of  freeness  which  distinguishes  it  from  a  grace. 
There  is  supplied  that  peculiar  grace  of  God  which  is  great  kindness 
shown  to  sinful  men,  who  are  undeserving  of  any  such  gift,  but  upon 
whom  God,  in  his  generosity,  is  disposed  to  look,  not  as  culprits  and 
criminals  afar  off,  but  as  brought  near  to  him,  as  friends  through  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  And  the  declaration  of  the  apostle  which  we  have 
selected,  is,  that  spiritual  life,  pardon  and  salvation,  here  and  hereafter, 
are  gifts  of  God,  or  graces  conferred.  That  is  to  say,  that  a  man  is  par- 
doned and  saved,  not  on  account  of  his  earning  pardon  and  salvation, 
not  on  account  of  what  there  is  in  him,  not  on  account  of  any  equiva- 
lent to  that  favor  which  is  rendered  to  him,  but  because  there  is  that 
in  the  nature  of  God  which  goes  out  to  man's  salvation,  and  which 
represents  a  quality,  a  character,  a  nature  in  God,  rather  than  any  af- 
fection or  condition  in  the  persons  who  are  the  recipients. 

The  reason,  then,  of  pardon  and  life,  lies  in  the  fullne.ss  of  the  love 
and  generosity  which  inhere  in  the  original  and  everlasting  nature  of 
God.  It  is  a  nature  which  throbs  for  outburst ;  which  seeks  out,  in 
creating,  and  through  creation,  new  and  infinite  channels  by  which  may 
flow  down  to  an  infinity  of  creatures  the  greatness  of  the  benefaction 
of  the  all-loving  soul  of  God.  And  God's  saving  mercy  is  free  to  every 
intellig<ent  creature  that  is  on  the  globe,  or  that  shall  be  on  the  globe, 
as  an  absolutely  free  gift. 

But  our  profit  in  this  amnesty  or  gift  must  come  as  all  benefit  of 
the  soul  comes  ^  that  is,  by  our  accepting  it.  The  proffer  does  not  bring 
profit — the  realization  does.  Thus,  we  take  physical  things  by  our  phy- 
sical organs.  If  they  are  presented  to  us,  we  possess  them  only 
when  we  have  taken  them  in  the  way  in  which  physical  things,  mate, 
rial  things,  can  be  taken.  When  intellectual  things  are  presented  to 
us  (ideas,  for  instance,  and  new  truths,  or  inflections  of  old  ones),  they 
are  of  no  validity,  and  of  no  use,  and  of  no  significance  to  us  as  long 
as  our  intellect,  being  dead,  does  not  rise  up  to  receive  them.  A  man 
presented  with  the  most  astonishing  discoveries  written  out  in  a 
book  which  he  cannot  read,  has  in  some  sense  a  gift  of  knowledge 
presented  to  him  ;  but  it  is  of  no  use  to  him,  simply  because  his  in- 


THE  GROUND  OF  SALVATION.  287 

telleot  (Miiuiot  receive  it  under  such  conditions.  If  tlie  gift  is  material, 
you  must  accept  it  as  material  gifts  are  accepted.  If  the  gift  be  intel 
lectual,  it  must  be  conferred  and  received  as  intellectual  gifts  are  con 
ferred  and  received.  If  the  gift  be  emotive,  then  it  must  appeal  to  the 
sensibility  of  reciprocal  emotion;  as,  if  one  confers  confidence  or  affection 
or  friendship,  that  is  received  only  when  a  corresponding  warmth  of  af- 
fection rises  up  to  take  it  and  to  realize  it.  And  the  generosity,  the  life, 
the  goodness,  the  loving-kindness,  the  long-suffering  of  God — these  can 
be  received  by  us  only  through  some  corresponding  spiritual  sensibilTty. 
And  although  they  are  ours  in  one  sense,  in  another  sense  they  never 
avail  for  us  until  in  some  manner  we  take  them  home  to  ourselves. 
This  is  what  is  meant  by  receiving  the  free  grace  of  God  by  faith.  It 
is  the  nature  of  God  looking  out  upon  men,  sinful  and  degraded,  to  love 
them — as  I  shall  Ifave  occasion  to  show  before  I  am  done.  To  love 
them  witliout  forfeit,  and  without  waiting  for  their  reformation  ;  to  love 
them  while  yet  they  are  sinners  and  sinning — that  is  the  nature  of  God. 
Yet  the  proclamation  of  tliat  nature  which  the  great  heart  of  God 
beams  and  pours  out ;  the  proclamation  of  benefaction,  pardon,  resto- 
ration, inspiration,  divinity,  for  every  living  soul;  the  proclamation  of 
the  dying  of  the  Saviour  to  give  liberty  to  mankind — if  it  falls  on  men 
as  sunshine  on  stone,  it  does  no  good.  For  this  great  knowledge,  this 
great  proclamation  of  divine,  loving  amnesty,  must  be  received  by  some 
feeling  that  corresponds  to  itself  before  it  takes  hold  of  men  with  any 
benefit. 

A  worm,  to-day — if  there  be  worms  in  December  unburied — lives  in 
a  world  just  as  large  and  just  as  rich  as  you  and  I  do;  but  how  much 
of  this  world  can  a  worm  appropriate  ?  And  what  is  all  the  world  to  it 
except  just  that  little  modicum  which  it  can  itself  appropriate?  The 
worm  has  just  as  much  of  the  world  as  a  worm  can  use — not  a  bit 
more.     All  the  rest  to  it  is  surplusage. 

The  sparrow  that  hunts  the  worm  has  a  great  deal  larger  world  ; 
but  then  it  is  a  sparrow-world,  after  all ;  and  the  world  of  the  sparrow 
is  measured  by  the  power  of  the  sparrow  to  appropriate.  The  sparrow 
has  I'isen  above  the  worm,  a  great  way  in  organization,  and  a  great 
many  degrees  above  the  worm-form.  But,  after  all,  it  is  simply  a 
creature  of  that  world  which  it  can  appropriate. 

The  dog  is  far  higher  than  the  bird.  And  in  the  dog  you  begin  to 
see  the  germs  of  rational  intelligence,  and  the  germs  of  affection  and 
of  disposition.  The  dog  is,  as  it  were,  the  prophecy  of  the  man.  And 
yet,  large  as  he  is,  advanced  as  he  is,  he  owns  only  just  so  much  world 
as  a  dog  can  appropriate.  What  to  the  dog  is  architecture,  in  respect 
to  its  element  of  beauty  ?  Nothing.  He  has  no  eye  for  beauty.  What 
to  him  are  the  sciences?     Nothing.     What  is  knowledge  to  hiral 


238  TEE  GROUND  OF  SALVATION. 

N'othIn^^  It  does  not  exist  to  him.  It  is  outside  of  his  possible  ap- 
prehension.  Only  so  much  of  this  world  exists  to  that  dog  as  is  able 
to  get  into  him — into  his  apprehension  and  receptivity. 

When  you  go  to  an  intelligent  barbarian,  you  have  gone  a  great 
deal  higher  than  the  dog.  And  yet,  the  barbarian  has  in  this  world 
only  just  80  much  as  he  can  appropriate.  Yet  there  is  an  immense 
reach  of  reality  that  he  never  appreciates,  and  never  comes  into  sym- 
pathy with,  and  derives  no  benefit  from. 

And  from  the  barbarian  man,  step  by  step,  through  all  civilizing 
influences,  we  come  at  last  to  the  rational,  the  intelligent,  the  culti- 
vated and  spiiitualized  man. 

And  now,  how  much  larger  the  world  is  to  him!  Yet  all  that 
part  of  the  gi-eat  outlying  world  that  he  has  no  affinity  for,  all  that  part 
of  it  for  which  he  has  no  experience,  no  susceptibility,  and  which  does 
not  interpret  itself  to  him  on  any  chord,  nor  along  any  avenue  of  in- 
telligence in  him — all  that  part  of  the  world  is  to  him  as  if  it  were  not. 
And  if  there  be  outside  of  the  race  of  man  angelic  races ;  and  if,  high 
above  all  these,  God  over  all,  blessed  forever,  has  filled  the  concep- 
tion of  perfectness,  of  beaut/,  of  gracefulness,  of  gentleness,  of  sweet- 
ness, of  ineffable  love,  of  bounty,  and  of  beneficence  transcending  all 
conceptions  formed  in  our  lower  reaches  of  life  ;  if  there  be  such  a  God 
as  this  in  the  heavens,  they  only  can  have  the  benefit  of  that  revelation 
of  God  who  have  some  capacity  to  reciprocate  it,  to  take  hold  of  it,  to 
see  it,  to  feel  it.  But  to  all  those  who  have  no  such  capacity  he  is  as 
if  he  were  not.  Therefore  it  is  said  that  while  men  are  saved  by  God's 
unconditional  goodness,  because  it  is  the  nature  of  God  to  love  men, 
and  to  purify  them,  and  to  save  them,  they  are  not  saved,  after  all,  un- 
less the  knowledge,  the  proffer,  coming  to  them,  is  accepted  by  some- 
thing in  them  which  corresponds  to  the  divine  nature.  It  is  all  as 
nothing  to  men  who  have  no  eyes  to  see  it,  no  heart  to  experience  it, 
and  no  will  to  accept  it.  We  are  saved  by  the  grace  or  gift  of  God, 
and  not  of  ourselves.  We  are  saved  by  the  faith  of  this  grace  or  gift 
of  God,  by  believing  it,  and  accepting  it.  In  other  woi"ds,  that  is  the 
way  in  which  it  works. 

This,  then,  is  the  philosophy  of  faith,  or  receptive  belief.  And  the 
reason  why  God's  love  does  not  help  multitudes  of  men  to  whom  it  is 
preached,  is,  that  they  reciprocate  nothing  to  it. 

I  remark,  then,  in  the  first  place,  iu  view  of  this  brief  statement, 
that  this  is  the  true  and  only  method  in  which  the  doctrine  of  salvation 
should  be  presented  to  men.  This  is  the  ground  and  reason  of  salva- 
tion, namely,  God's  nature.  It  is  the  presentation  of  a  personal  God,  full 
of  love  and  full  of  mere)'',  rescuing  from  sin  and  degradation  every 
soul  that  will  receive  his  love.     This  is  the  true  atonement.     God  is 


THE  GROUND  OF  SALVATION.  239 

the  atonement.  What  he  has  done  shows  atoning  mercy;  but  the 
essence  and  centre  of  atonement  lies  in  God  himsel^gand  not  in  any 
exhibitory  action  of  it.  It  is  the  eternal  and  the  everWijHng  nature  of 
love  to  heal  sin,  to  forgive  sin,  to  purify  men  from  their  lower  state 
and  bring  them  up  out  of  the  bondnge  of  the  flesh,  and  into  the  glori 
ous  lio-ht  and  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God.  Now,  if  one  wants  to  know 
why  a  man  is  saved,  by  the  grace  of  God  he  is  saved.  What  does  the 
grace  of  God  mean?  It  means  God's  loving  power.  How  comes  God 
by  this  love?     Ask  him.     Ask  eternity.     It  is  the  nature  of  God. 

A  presentation  to  mankind  of  the  theory  of  atonement  from  a 
lower  plane  than  this,  as  has  been  so  prevalent,  and  is  to  this  day  so 
prevalent,  is  pernicious.  Not  that  there  is  not,  or  may  not  be,  a  theory 
of  atonement;  but  an  explanation  of  the  "plan  of  salvation"  as  it 
has  been  drawn  out  in  theology,  after  the  analogy,  mostly,  of  human 
civil  govei-nments,  tends  to  destroy  the  essential  part  of  the  perso- 
nality of  God  in  the  quickening  and  saving  work  of  salvation.  God's 
mercy  through  Jesus  Christ  is  to  be  presented,  evermore,  simply  as  the 
sovereign,  benignant,  blessed  act  of  a  divine  Person.  We  are  not,  in 
presenting  this  to  men,  to  go  back  and  ask  the  question,  "  Why  did 
he  ?"  or  "How  did  he  ?  "  We  are  to  stand  simply  in  this  great  luminous 
fact,  that  it  is  the  nature  of  God  to  love  ;  and  out  of  this  great  central 
nature  God  does  present  salvation  to  every  man.  Every  man 
that  will  receive  it  will  have  the  benefit  of  it.  Those  that  do  not 
accept  it  will  go  on  as  if  it  were  not  true,  and  to  them  it  will 
not  be  tiTie.  That  is  the  law  of  the  universe.  There  is  sun-light 
enough  for  all  flowers  that  want  it ;  but  if  a  flower  is  under  a  rock 
the  sun-light  does  not  help  it.  Or,  if  you  can  imagine  such  a  thing  as 
a  flower  standing  where  the  sun  might  j)our  down  upon  it,  and  hiding 
itself  away  out  of  the  sun's  rays ;  if  you  can  imagine  it  as  resisting 
the  shining  of  the  sun  so  that  his  light  cannot  reach  it,  the  sun  would 
be  of  no  advantage  to  it.  Summer  only  helj)s  things  that  take  sum- 
mer into  them. 

We  are  not,  then,  to  preach  the  plan  of  salvation,  but  we  are  to 
preach  God,  to  men.  We  are  not  to  preach  the  atonement ;  we  are 
to  preach  Christ.  We  are  not  to  preach  the  philosophy  of  redemption  ; 
we  are  to  preach  the  blessedness  of  God's  heart  and  soid.  The  moment 
that  you  undertake  to  preach  that  which  is  strictly  philosophical  in 
this  matter,  that  very  moment  you  preach  man's  theorizing  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  revelation  of  God  himself. 

But  it  will  be  asked,  "Do  not  the  Scriptures  teach  that  the  suffer- 
ing and  death  of  Christ  were  the  ground  and  reason  of  this  divine 
mercy  ?  "     I  reply.  No,  not  in  the  sense  in  which  men  think  they  do. 

But,  not  to  dwell  upon  that,  the  Scriptures  do  teach,  I  think,  that 


240  TEE  GROUND  OF  SALVATION. 

the  sinless  obedience,  the  expiatory  suffering  and  the  death  of  Christ, 
had  some  relatien,  in  the  invisible  realm  of  divine  government,  to  the 
world's  salvati^.  I  know  that  a  great  many  dispute  that ;  but  I  do 
not  see  my  way  clear  to  set  it  aside.  After  careful  and  long  reading  of 
Scripture,  I  cannot  but  believe  that  the  Apostles  taught,  and  meant 
men  to  believe,  that  the  suffering  of  Christ  had  an  expiatory  virtue  in 
it ;  that  the  suffering  and  death  of  Christ  did  do  more  than  constitute 
a  manifestation  ;  that  they  did  have  a  virtue  that  in  some  way  changed 
things  in  the  great  world  behind  and  out  of  sight.  I  cannot  faii'ly 
construe  the  language  of  the  New  Testament  other  than  so. 

But  it  stops  right  there,  without  going  one  single  step  further.  It 
merely  recognizes,  without  explanation,  without  solution,  the  fact  that 
the  suffering  and  death  of  the  Lord  Jesus  prepared  a  way  for  the 
mercy  of  God  to  reach  mankind.  It  left  that  fact  without  a  syllable 
of  explanation  as  to  the  how  or  why. 

And  so  I  am  accustomed  to  say  that  I  believe  the  suffering 
and  death  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  did  have  an  influence,  out  of  my 
knowledge,  and  out  of  the  world's  knowledge,  which  will  be  revealed 
hereafter ;  that  in  some  way  they  took  hold  of  the  processes  of  things 
in  the  universe ;  and  that  all  that  part  of  Christ's  suffering  which  is  ex- 
plained to  us,  iterated  and  reiterated  as  a  motive  power,  all  that  part  of 
it  which  is  addressed  to  our  conscience  and  our  intelligence  and  our  sus- 
ceptibility, is  this :  that  the  influence  of  it  was  to  make  manifest  that 
which  inhered  in  the  nature  of  God  ;  and  that  the  sufferings  of 
Christ,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned, — so  far  as  we  are  to  search  them 
out,  and  work  them  out, — have  not  so  much  to  do  with  the  economy 
of  God's  moral  government,  as  with  the  influence  which  is  to  be 
exerted  among  men.  And  obedience,  and  suffering  willingly  borne, 
and  death  triumphantly  met — all  these  are  modes  by  which  we  meas- 
ure what  is  the  fullness  of  love,  the  strength  of  love,  the  depth  of  love, 
and  the  power  of  love.     Our  Lord  declared  : 

"Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this,  that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for 
his  friends." 

And  it  is  said  in  the  passage  which  I  have  read  in  your  hearjng 
this  morning : 

"Scarcely  for  a  righteous  man  will  one  die:  yet  peradventure  for  a 
good  man  some  would  even  dare  to  die.  But  God  commend eth  his  love  to 
us,  in  that  while  we  were  yet  sinners  [bad  as  we  could  be :  I  do  not  mean  sin- 
ning as  badly  as  we  could,  but  being  out  of  friendship  and  out  of  sympathy, 
and  so  being  in  the  remotest  sphere  possible  from  the  expectation  of  any 
such  goodness] — God  commendeth  his  love  toward  us,  in  that  while  we  were 
yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us." 

There  was  the  commendation  of  love.  It  was  an  emotion  that 
would  bear  suffering.  It  was  an  emotion  that  would  bear  pangs  un- 
uttei'able.     It  was  an  emotion  that  could  go  through  a  long  experi- 


THE  QROUBD  OF  SALVATION.  241 

encc  of  humiliation,  and  death  itself — and  under  circumstances  that 
no  human  intelligence  can  ever  interpret.  For  the  experience  of  one 
Man  no  man  can  interpret.  The  experience  of  so  great  a  nature  as  that 
of  Christ,  going  through  that  which  he  went  through,  no  man  can 
conceive  of  That  it  was  vast,  that  it  was  voluminous,  Gethsemane 
bears  witness.  Many  a  drooping  hour  when  his  soul  was  troubled 
well-nigh  unto  death  bears  witness  to  its  greatness.  It  was  very- 
different  and  far  beyond  all  common  human  experience.  And  all  of  it, 
— what  he  thought,  and  felt,  and  suffered,  and  forbore,  and  did, — we 
are  told  by  the  Apostle  are  commendations  of  the  love  of  God. 
They  are  interpretations  of  it ;  they  are  the  measures  of  it.  And  so 
ixir  as  we  are  concerned,  all  that  we  need  to  know  of  the  philosophy 
of  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  is  this :  that  they  measure  to  us  the  great- 
ness of  his  mercy  and  the  greatness  of  God's  love ;  that  they  inter- 
pret to  us  the  effulgence  and  the  fullness  of  that  divine  generosity  and 
of  that  divine  kindness  in  which  is  the  hope  of  the  world,and  the  sal- 
vation of  every  man  that  is  saved. 

When,  then,  we  are  to  preach  the  salvation  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  it  is  not  for  us  to  preach  so  much  an  explanation  of  how  Christ 
Avas  enabled  to  be  "just,  and  yet  the  Justifier."  It  may  be  true  that 
there  was  a  process  which  he  went  through  in  order  to  be  just  and 
yet  the  Justifier ;  but  the  philosophy  of  that  process  is  never 
explained.  It  raay  be  implied  ;  it  is  implied:  but  all  the  explana- 
tion there  is  of  it  is  but  a  hint.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  that  which 
the  Scripture  does  deal  in,  is  that  Christ  is  prepared  to  save  ;  and  that, 
so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  the  ground  and  reason  of  mercy  and  salva- 
tion is  love  in  Christ  to  us.  The  declaration  is  not,  "  Because  I  have 
gone  through  such,  and  such,  and  such  steps  I  am  now  qualified  to 
offer  you  salvation."  It  is,  "  Salvation  is  possible  to  the  worst  sinners, 
because  God  loves  so.  And  that  he  does  love  so  is  made  manifest  by 
what  He  has  suffered  to  show  it."  The  suffering  and  the  experience 
of  Christ  are  always  arguments  interpreting  the  greatness  of  the  love 
of  God  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  not  philosophical  statements  for  the  sake 
of  establishing  or  illustrating  some  mysterious  plan  which  lies  back 
unexplained. 

If,  then,  a  man  knows  that  the  nature  of  God,  as  made  manifest 
through  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  him,  is  such  that  it  is  his  desire, 
and  has  been  from  eternity,  and  will  be  to  eternity,  to  raise  the  weak, 
to  lift  up  the  fallen,  to  forgive  the  sinful,  to  build  up  those  that  aro 
cast  down,  to  fill  meager  and  fainting  souls  with  strength  and  sus- 
tenance and  power,  and  to  carry  them  on  to  glory,  and  that  He  does 
this  for  just  the  same  reason  that  a  mother  does  things  for  her  child — 
not  because  the  public  sentiment  makes  her;    not  because  the  law 


242  TEE  GROUND  OF  SALVATION. 

makes  her ;  not  because  the  child  is  going  to  pay  her  back  ;  but  out 
of  the  fountain  of  motherhood  ;  out  of  that  instinct  and  impulsion  of 
love  in  her  own  bosom  which  makes  her  succor  the  poor  and  needy, 
the  ground  and  reason  of  safety  for  the  child  being  found  in  her  love 
— if  a  man  knows  this,  he  knows  all  that  the  Scriptures  undertake  to 
teach  him  on  this  subject,  and  he  does  not  need  to  search  for  any  fur- 
ther explanation  of  it.  Says  God,  "  In  my  ineffable  and  everlasting 
love  is  the  salvation  of  the  world  ;  and  I  pardon,  I  spare,  I  pity,  I  de- 
liver, and  I  will  ransom  with  an  everlasting  salvation, every  one  that 
believes  in  me,  because  I  am  so  loving  and  so  generous.  It  is  my 
nature  to  love.  I  am  Father,  and  I  will  brood  the  world  as  father- 
hood and  motherhood  brood  the  cradle."  That  is  the  divinity  and 
the  power  of  the  universe.  That  is  the  infinite  power  of  love.  That 
is  the  truth  of  the  atonement.  That  is  the  glory  of  the  atonement,  in 
the  Father,  and  in  the  Son,  and  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  And  they  are 
founded  (they  were  illustrated  in  Jerusalem,  but  never  founded  there) — 
they  are  founded  in  the  eternity  of  God — in  that  drift  and  current, 
moving  mighty  as  the  ages,  from  eternity  to  eternity.  And  our  sal- 
vation stands,  not  in  any  plan,  or  theory,  or  explanation,  or  arrange- 
ment, but  in  the  force  of  the  whole  total  nature  of  God,  as  a  Being  of 
infinite  love,  and  therefore  of  infinite  compassion  and  infinite  succor. 

And  that  is  the  thing  to  be  preached.  That  is  the  thing  which 
breaks  down  the  heart.  That  is  the  thing  which  makes  men  bow 
down  their  heads,  and  say,  "  If  this  be  God,  let  me  worship."  That  is 
the  thing  which  gives  hope  and  courage  to  mankind. 

If  one  be  sick,  and  you  present  him  medicine,  knowing  his  sick- 
ness perfectly  well,  and  saying  to  him,  "This  will  certainly  alleviate 
your  pain,  and  restore  you,"  he  takes  the  medicine.  How  ?  By  faith 
in  your  statement,  simply.  And  he  is  relieved  by  it.  But  suppose 
you  thought  it  necessary  to  say  to  him,  "This  medicine  was  gathered, 
some  of  it  in  Africa,  and  some  of  it  in  South  America ;  and  it  was 
gathered  at  such  and  such  seasons  of  the  year.  The  juices  of  the 
plant  were  extracted  and  prepared.  And  then  by  commerce  they 
were  brought  hither.  And  now  these  various  elements  have  been 
brought  together  and  triturated  in  such  and  such  proportions.  And 
when  taken,  one  part  goes  to  the  secretions,  and  another  part  goes  to 
the  liver,  and  another  part  goes  to  the  nerves.  And  so,  this  being  the 
way  in  which  the  medicine  was  obtained,  in  which  it  was  made,  and 
in  which  it  operates,  if  you  take  it  you  will  get  well."  If  you  were 
trying  to  make  a  doctor,  I  do  not  dispute  that  this  might  be  a  wise 
method,  and  that  it  might  be  advisable  to  undertake  to  show  him 
whence  medicine  comes,  and  how  it  operates,  in  order  to  direct  him 
in  the  prescription  of  medicine  :  but  if  you  were  presciibing  for  a 


THE  GROUND  OF  SALVATION.  243 

patient  that  ^\  as  sick,  and  that  was  writhing  in  the  agonies  of  present 
pain,  you  would  not  think  of  entering  into  a  botanical  explanation  as 
to  the  origin  of  the  medicine,  nor  as  to  the  philosophy  of  its  opera- 
tion. 

Now,  I  do  not  say  but  there  may  be  reasons  why,  in  the  chair 
of  theology,  when  you  are  discussing  the  abstract  nature  of  all  gov- 
ernments, and  the  abstract  nature  of  all  things  derived  from  one 
source  or  another,  it  may  be  proper  and  necessary  to  discuss  this 
matter  of  God's  moral  government.  There  is  no  question  that  may 
not  be  raised  under  such  circumstances.  There  is  no  question  that 
may  not  be  in  order  in  the  philosopher's  or  the  professor's  chair.  But 
when  the  Gospel  is  being  preached,  I  protest  against  your  present- 
ing your  philosophy  of  God's  medicine  for  the  soul's  want,  before 
prescribing  the  medicine  for  that  want.  First  bring  God's  love  to 
the  soul  that  is  sick,  and  let  the  heart  take  it ;  and  then  the  man  is 
healed  by  it  whether  he  knows  where  it  came  from,  how  it  is  pre- 
pared, and  why  it  was  presented  to  him,  or  not. 

Food  for  the  starving  does  not  require  that  the  starving  shall  un- 
d'jrstand  the  origin  of  the  food,  or  the  operation  of  it.  Raiment  for 
the  cold  does  not  require  that  they  for  whom  it  is  provided  shall  know 
whence  it  comes.  A  house  of  refuge  being  opened  to  those  who  are 
hai'd  pi'essed,  it  is  not  needful,  before  they  conie  in  to  enjoy  its  com- 
forts, that  they  should  know  just  when  it  was  built,  and  just  how  it 
was  built,  and  just  how  it  was  paid  for,  and  just  ho  y  it  was  arranged 
within.  A  knowledge  of  the  history  and  economy  of  that  house  is  not 
necessary  before  one  takes  the  mercy  M'hich  it  offers. 

A  life-boat  puts  out  to  a  foundering  ship.  Is  it  needful  before  one 
leaps  from  the  sinking  vessel  into  the  frail  life-bp.(xtj  that  every  single 
thing  about  it  shall  be  explained  to  him  ?  Must  he  wait  and 
be  informed  who  made  it,  and  of  what  materials  i^  is  constructed  ? 
Men  never  act  in  that  way  on  subjects  of  that  kind.  It  is  only  in  mat>- 
ters  of  theology  that  they  act  so  strangely.  In  all  the  great  wel- 
fares of  life,  men  do  not  undertake  to  teach  the  philosophy  of  things 
before  the  benefit  of  those  things  can  be  availed  of;  and  they  ought 
not  to  do  it  in  matters  so  important  and  vital  as  the  question  of  their 
soul's  salvation.  That  which  is  essential  is  this  reciprocal  love.  God 
so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  Son  to  die  for  it ;  and  He  died  for 
it  while  yet  it  was  at  enmity  to  him.  And  whoever  believes  that  this 
dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  the  evidence  and  interpretation  of 
God's  pardoning  love  ;  whoever  will  accept  that  truth,  and  believe  it ; 
whoever  feels  constantly  the  gusliing  in  his  soul  of  that  love,  and  the 
certainty  of  it,  is  saved  by  the  ingress  through  grace,  as  it  is  called, 
of  this  truth  into  his  nature. 


244  THE  GROUND  OF  SALVATION. 

Tnat  which  has  power  with  men,  then,  I  think  to  be,  not  that 
whicli  presents  to  them  the  history,  if  I  may  so  say,  of  moral  mech- 
anism in  the  universe  ;  but  that  which  presents  to  them  a  personal 
God,  clothed  with  all  the  sympathies,  and  all  the  yearnings,  and  all  the 
desires  that  characterize  a  father.  That  certainly  is  the  way  in  which 
the  apostles  preached  Christ  everywhere  ;  and  that  is  the  way  which 
subsequent  experience  proves  to  be  the  most  beneficial  preaching  of 
Christ.  That  which  men  most  need  to  have  preached,  is  not  a  plan  of 
salvation,  but  Christ.  Preaching  God,  and  not  the  philosophy  of  God's 
moral  government,  is  what  is  needed. 

I  remark,  in  the  second  place,  that  Paul  does  discuss  the  plan  of 
salvation  ;  but  how  ?  And  to  whom  ?  Why,  to  the  Jews.  We  find, 
for  instance,  in  the  apostles'  writings — principally  in  Paul's — the  de- 
claration that  Christ  is  the  end  of  the  law,  and  that  Christ  made  a  sat- 
isfaction for  the  law,  and  that  he  fulfilled  the  law,  and  made  it  honor- 
able. And  so  men  have  inferred  that  the  atonement  of  Christ  was  ne- 
cessary in  order  that  God  should  first  satisfy  the  claims  of  justice  and 
the  claims  of  law  throughout  the  universe ;  and  that  when  they  had 
been  satisfied  (some  said  in  one  way,  and  some  in  another ;  for  there  have 
been  infinite  diversities  of  theories  in  respect  to  this)  then  he  could  con- 
sistently with  justice  ofier  salvation  to  all  that  would  comply  with  the 
terms.  Now  this  is,  in  my  humble  judgment,  surplusage.  The  whole 
question  that  Paul  argued  with  the  Jews  was  just  as  simple  as  A,  B,  C. 
Christ  came  to  the  Jews,  himself  a  Jew,  and  a  follower  of  the  Jewish 
Law,  declaring  that  that  law  should  never  pass  away. 

"  Till  heaven  and  earth  pass,  one  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass 
from  the  law  till  all  he  fulfilled." 

That  is  its  substantial  basis.  And  when  the  apostles  began  to  teach 
Christ,  men  said,  "  Our  fathers  have  been  chastised  enough  for  aband- 
oning the  law  of  Moses.  This  is  God's  law,  made  known  to  us,  and  con- 
firmed through  ages  by  proofs  immutable ;  and  we  are  not  going  into 
a  new  religion.  We  are  not  going  to  throw  aside  the  Mosaic  law 
and  take  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ."  And  what  was  the  answer 
of  the  apostle  ?  It  was  this :  "  My  dear  brethren,  you  do  not 
abandon  Moses,  and  you  do  not  abandon  the  law  of  God,  when  you  ac- 
cept the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  for  Jesus  Christ  himself  is  the  law.  The 
law  means  him.  It  was  the  foreshadowing  of  him.  And  in  taking  that 
which  is  the  substance  instead  .of  the  shadow,  you  fulfill  the  law  better 
than  if  you  took  the  law,  and  left  the  personal  Christ  out.  You  do  not 
understand  that  in  your  history  the  whole  economy  of  Moses  was  a 
schoolmaster  to  bring  you  to  Christ ;  and  that  Avhen  Christ  comes,  and 
you  take  him,  instead  of  taking  something  antagonistic  to  your  law, 
you  take  that  self-same  thing.    You  keep  it  through  a  person  in  a  man- 


THE  GROUND  OF  SALVATION.  245 

ner  that  you  could  not  until  Christ  came.  And  therefore  you  do  not 
give  up  the  law.  Christ  mak.es  the  law  more  honorable,  larger,  nobler, 
widei',  more  spiritual. 

Now,  this  was  a  historical  argument  to  the  Jew  which  had  great 
meaning  and  which  extricated  him  from  embarrassment;  for,  through- 
out, "  the  law"  means  the  law  of  God  as  taught  by  Moses,  the  Jewish 
law,  the  only  law  the  Jews  knew  or  cared  anything  about.  But,  wheu 
a  modern  teacher  goes  before  a  modern  audience  that  has  no  such  his- 
torical snare  or  besetment,  that  has  never  been  educated  in  the  Jewish 
law,  and  undertakes  to  argue  that  God  himself  must  satisfy  the  great 
moral  law,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  Jews  argued  it,  he  has  violated 
historical  propriety ;  he  has  gone  aside  from  scriptural  example  ;  he  has 
introduced  an  official,  and  I  think  a  merely  scholastic  issue  that  does  not 
belong  to  the  Bible,  and  only  perplexes  man's  understanding.  There- 
fore, when  you  read  in  the  New  Testament  that  the  law  had  to  be 
thought  of  and  to  be  observed,  do  not  think  that  it  is  meant  that  God 
had,  before  he  could  offer  pardon  to  the  world,  to  sit  down  and  say  to 
himself,  "  How  shall  I  pardon  the  world  that  lies  in  wickedness  ?  If 
I  do,  all  my  intelligent  creatures  in  heaven  will  get  up  and  say, 
'Where  is  your  justice?'  Now,  I  must  take  care  of  the  angels,  and  the 
universe  first;  and  when  I  have  taken  care  of  these,  I  can  forgive  sin- 
ners."    This  is  the  modern  fictitious  and  false  notion. 

Over  against  it,  I  present  the  sublime  defense  made  by  God  him- 
self, when,  in  answer  to  the  same  kind  of  reasoning  on  the  part  of  the 
Jews,  who  thought  that  he  could  not  save  any  but  Jews,  he  said,  "  I 
will  have  mercy  on  whom  I  will  have  mercy,  and  I  will  have  compas- 
sion on  whom  I  will  have  compassion."  ■  It  is  God's  declaration  of  in- 
dependence to  act  according  to  the  impulse  of  his  own  glorious  person- 
ality. "  I  am  not  tied  up  by  my  promises  to  Abraham  ;  I  am  not  tied 
up  by  any  federation  with  the  Jews,"  said  God :  "I  have  liberty  of  in- 
finite love,  and  of  individual  justice ;  and  there  is  nothing  that  holds 
me.  There  is  no  system,  no  government,  no  anything  that  prevents 
my  letting  flash  and  flame  out  my  own  personal  power  of  nature." 

And  that  which  was  true  in  answering  the  Jewish  prejudices  and 
national  conceit,  is  still  more  eminently  true  in  answering  the  scholastic 
conceit  of  the  philosophy  of  atonement.  God  saves  men  because  he 
loves  to  save  them.  His  mercy  saves  every  man  who  knows  enough 
to  open  his  heart  and  say,  "  I  will  take  it,  and  believe  in  it, and  rejoice 
in  it." 

I  see  people  going  by  my  house  on  whom  tlie  roaring  wind  and  tho 
pelting  rain  are  beating  ;  and  I  open  my  door  and  say  to  a  poor,  slen- 
derly clad,  feeble  woman,  without  umbrella,  without  cloak,  without 
gloves,   "  My  dear  madam,  come  up  hither.    Come  in."    She  rushes 


246  TUE  a  ROUND  OF  SALVATION. 

up  the  stoop,  glad  of  a  shelter  from  the  biting  rain  and  hail ;  and 
I  close  the  door  on  hei*,  and  bring  her  to  the  fire.  Why  do  I  do  it  ? 
Because  I  am  a  humane  man.  It  is  just  that,  and  nothing  else.  Who 
is  she  ?  Let  us  not  ask.  All  we  want  to  know  is  that  she  is  miserable. 
Why  do  I  show  her  mercy  ?  Because  she  is  virtuous  ?  She  is  not.  Her 
hand  knows  theft  ;  her  heart  knows  guile  ;  bnt  she  is  miserable,  and 
she  suffers.  And  when  I  know  all  that,  do  I  send  her  away  from  ray 
fire  ■?  No.  I  feed  her.  I  clothe  her.  And  if  she  goes  out  from  my 
house,  she  goes  out  with  my  benefaction.  And  after  she  is  gone,  I 
console  myself  with  the  hope  that  my  kindness  to  her  will  lead  her  to 
better  ways.  Why  did  I  do  it  ?  Not  in  obedience  to  any  law.  There 
is  no  great  problem  of  metaphysics  in  it.  It  is  just  this :  That  1 
love  to  do  such  things  to  a  fellow  creature.  And  is  not  the  philoso- 
phy of  atonement  this  :  that  God  loves  to  heal  sinning  creatures  ' 
And  he  loves  to  do  it  because  he  is  God.  That  is  the  reason  for  sir 
ning  men  to  lay  hold  of  You  do  not  want  to  go  any  further  than  that. 
And  all  further  explanations  are  overlaid  with  the  miserable  fictitious 
systems  of  man's  justice  which  give  us  all  our  analogies  of  the  requi- 
sitions of  God's  justice.  And  all  our  arguments  on  the  theory  of 
atonement,  as  based  upon  the  necessities  of  moral  law  and  govern- 
ment, are  derived  from  civil  jurisprudence.  Civil  jurisprudence  is  the 
best  form  of  law  that  men  can  make;  and  yet,  it  is  a  very  ricketty 
affair.  There  is  nothing  in  the  world  that,  beginning  on  right,  sound 
principle,  runs,  at  every  single  step,  into  more  blunders  and  incon- 
sistencies. There  are  not  more  meshes  in  a  net  than  there  are  in  the 
administration  of  human  justice.  It  is  what  society  cannot  get  along 
without ;  but  it  is  not  a  perfect  system  in  theory,  and  still  less  in  prac- 
tice. And  are  you  to  derive  your  analogies  from  that  which  is  the 
mere  creature  of  weakness  and  necessity  1  And  are  you  to  lay  those 
analogies  upon  the  infinite  perfection  of  the  eternal  God,  and  say, 
"Because  a  judge  on  the  earth  has  to  act  so  and  so,  Jehovah  has  to 
act  so  and  so  ?" 

That  explanation  of  the  law,  then,  which  had  a  historical  meaning 
to  the  Jew,  and  which  served  to  extricate  him  from  embarrassments, 
when  you  undertake  to  apply  it  to  us,  commuting  the  law  from  the  old 
historical,  ceremonial  law  into  the  abstract  or  modern  law  of  justice,  is 
as  a  piece  of  mechanism  between  the  soul  and  a  personal  God. 

A  plan  of  Salvation  there  may  be;  but  that  is  not  what  we  are  sent 
to  preach.  A  theory  of  atonement  there  may  be ;  but  that  theory  we 
are  not  sent  to  preach.  We  were  not  told  to  go  down  and  explain  to 
men  how  God  might  be  just,  and  the  Justifier ;  but  simply  that  he  ia 
just  when  he  justifies  and  clears,  and  when  he  condemns  as  well.  The 
accomplished  fact,  and  the  sublimest  and  supremest  fact  that  it  is 


THE  GROUND  OF  SALVATION.  247 

possible  for  men  to  understand,  is  the  personality  of  the  everlivino-  and 
everlasting  God,  the  Source  of  life  ;  the  Source  of  healing ;  the  Source 
of  inspiration  ;  the  Source  of  growth  ;  the  Architect  of  ages  ;  the  Up- 
buildcr;  the  Nurse;  the  Father;  the  Mother;  the  Friend  ;  the  First 
And  the  Last;  the  Beginning  and  the  Ending;  the  Author  and  the  Fin- 
isher. That  is  what  He  is  to  every  needy  soul,  to  every  hungry  soul,  to 
every  wretched  soul.  God  is  enough,  in  the  infinite  fullness  of  his  nature 
and  love  and  sympathy,  for  every  living  creature  on  the  boundless 
globe,  and  through  the  epochs  of  time.  And  that  great  fact  of  divine 
love  in  personality — let  it  not  be  degenerated  into  a  web  of  metaphys- 
ics! Let  it  not  carnalize  itself  into  the  miserable  analogies  of  a  botched 
•  human  justice!  Let  it  stand  and  glow  in  the  pure  sympathy  and  glo- 
rious personality  of  a  central  God  ;  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Ghost,  all- 
loving,  all-drawing,  all-inspiring  and  lifting  up  men  into  their  ulti- 
mate and  rejoicing  condition  in  heaven.      There  is  atonement  for  you  I 

Every  end  of  religion  requires  that  man  should  be  brought  face  to 
face  and  heart  to  heart  with  a  loving  God  For  it  is  this  divine  heart- 
power  that  is  our  whole  hope. 

You  remember  that  very  afiecting  story  that  lies  unused  so  often  ia 
the  Old  Testament,  whei-e  the  Prophet  Elisha  was  at  night  called  in 
to  see  the  widow's  child.  The  child  was  dead.  It  was  the  only  lio-ht 
in  the  house ;  and  that  light  went  out.  And  so  the  house  was  dark. 
And  you  remember  how  he  stretched  himself  on  that  child,  and  put 
his  face  on  the  little  child's  lace,  and  put  his  hands  on  the  little  child's 
hands,  and  his  body,  part  by  part,  over  the  child's  body ;  and  how  the 
little  child  sneezed,  and  liis  life  began  to  come  back?  Beautiful  it  ia 
in  the  old  prophet's  story.  Infinitely  more  beautiful,  to  me,  is  the 
thought  that  the  great  God  lays  his  great  heart  on  my  heart,  and  on 
your  heart,  and  on  all  hearts.  And  it  is  this  pressure  of  the  heart  of 
God  that  wakes  in  my  life  correspondency,  sympathy,  hope,  love,  a 
new  life. 

And  it  is  that  which  men  want.  It  is  power  to  realize  God, 
and  to  know   how  beautiful  he  is,  and  how  generous  he  is,  and  how 

long-sutfering  he  is,  and  how  abundant  he  is  in  mercy  and  kindness 

though  he  will  not  clear  the  guilty  finally.  It  is  the  knowledo-e  of 
this  that  breaks  down  the  flinty  hearts  of  men.  And  it  is  the  thino-  for 
you  to  preach  and  talk,  as  it  is  the  thing,  also,  for  you  to  rejoice  in,  in 
your  own  personal  lives — namely,  the  glorious  fullness  of  Jesus  Christ, 
who  is  the  manifestation  of  God,  as  pitying,  sparing,  forbearing,  re- 
building, converting,  sanctifying,  and  finally  saving. 

So,  then,  when  at  last  we  come  home  to  glory — then,  not  as  a  doc- 
trine, but  as  an  experience,  every  one  of  us  will  say,  "  By  the  grace  of 
God  I  am  what  I  am."     Then  we  will  say,  "  Not  by  works  of  ri^-htr 


248  TEE  GROUND  OF  SALVATION. 

eousness  whicli  I  have  done,  but  by  the  love  of  God,  I  have  been 

saved," 

Let  me  read  now  again,  in  your  hearing,  that  whole  connection  in 
the  5th  of  Romans, — for  it  is  one  of  the  strongest  passages  of  Scripture, 
and  it  will  throw  light  on  still  another  point : 

"  When  we  were  yet  without  strength,  in  due  time  [or  in  the  fullness  of 
time]  Christ  died  for  the  ungodly." 

That  which  God's  love  is  willing  to  suffer  death  for,  is  ungodly 
men. 

"Nor  scarcely  for  a  righteous  man  will  one  die  [among  men] ;  yet  perad- 
venture  for  a  good  man  some  would  even  dare  to  die." 

A  merely  just  man  does  not  excite  much  sympathy.    A  benevolent* 
man  excites  a  good  deal  of  sympathy  ;  and  some  might  die  for  a  benev- 
olent man  though  they  would  not  for  a  just  man. 

"  But  God  commendeth  his  love  toward  us,  in  that  while  we  were  yet  sin- 
ners, Christ  died  for  us." 

O  sinners !  he  loved  you  so  that  while  you  were  yet  sinners  he 
died  for  you  ;  he  loves  you  so  that  while  you  are  yet  sinning,  your 
sinful  heart  does  not  obliterate  the  glory  of  his  love  toward  you. 

"  Much  more,  then,  being  now  justified  by  his  blood,  we  shall  be  saved 
from  wrath  through  him.  For  if  when  we  were  euemies,  we  were  reconciled 
to  God  by  the  death  of  his  Son ;  much  more  being  reconciled,  we  shall  be 
saved  by  his  life." 

That  is  to  say,  the  life  of  Christ  is  a  great  deal  more  efficacious,  is 
a  great  deal  more  powerful  in  the  general  salvation  of  this  world,  than 
his  death  was,  powerful  and  efficacious  as  that  was.  And  it  seems  to 
me  that  here  is  all  the  philosophy  that  we  want,  and  all  the  explanation 
that  we  need.  It  seems  to  me  that  here  is  the  sura  and  substance  of 
the  Gospel  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ :  Man  is  sinful,  and  utterly  unable 
to  build  himself  up ;  and  God,  in  the  spirit  of  infinite  love  and  gener- 
osity, shining  new  life  and  new  light,  pouring  abroad  effulgent  beams 
upon  the  hearts  of  men,  is  willing  to  rescue  them,  and  willing  to  build 
them  up.  And  what  time  any  heart  or  soul  looks  up,  beholds,  recog- 
nizes, receives ;  what  time  any  one  feels,  "  God  loves  me  with  an  infi- 
nite loving,  and  is  my  Father  for  my  soul's  good,"  it  is  because  the  cor- 
responding principle  of  love  has  sprung  into  being  in  that  soul.  And 
the  moment  that  feeling  of  love  begins  to  work  in  you,  you  are  a  new 
creatnre ;  you  are  passed  from  death  to  life.  And  from  that  time  on- 
ward, the  mighty  nature  and  power  of  the  universe,  as  disclosed  in 
the  love  of  God  in  Chiist  Jesus,  that  wonderful  secret  influence,  will 
be  working  in  you  toward  sanctification ;  and  finally  you  shall  stand 
'  and  see  him  face  to  face,  when  the  work  is  completed  in  you,  and  you 
shall  be  like  him. 

Thanks  be  to  God  for  the  unspeakable  gift  of  his  Son  Jesus  Christ  I 


THE  GROUND  OF  SALVATION.  249 

And  to  every  poor,  needy,  wretched,  sinful,  conscience-smitten,  and 
consciously  weak  creature  in  this  congregation,  I  bring  no  elaborate 
system,  I  bring  no  mysticism,  I  bring  no  philosophical  curiosity,  I 
bring  no  need  of  vast  knowledge  in  respect  to  moral  government  and 
to  the  plan  of  salvation;  but  I  bring  to  you  a  truth  which  is  just  as 
simple  as  the  truth  of  a  mother  overhanging  her  cradle.  I  bring  to 
you  the  nature  of  God  as  shown  in  Jesus  Christ — a  curative  nature  of 
love,  recreating.  And  I  say  that  this  God  is  revealed  for  you.  If  you 
need  help,  here  it  is.  If  you  need  forgiveness,  here  it  is  waiting  for 
you.  If  you  need  inspiration,  here  it  is.  It  is  not  formed  into  a  sys- 
tem; it  is  not  wrought  out  by  any  principle;  it  is  this:  God,  in  Christ 
J^esus,  loves,  spares,  pardons,  and  will  save. 

Now,  I  beseech  of  you,  if  your  thoughts  turn  toward  this  subject 
this  morning,  in  its  simple  disclosure ;  if  there  is  in  your  bosoms  a 
yearning  for  a  higher  life,  a  longing  for  a  better  experience,  turn  away 
from  all  human  knowledge.  Learn  in  prayer.  With  the  Word  of  God 
go  to  your  closet,  and  ask  that  blessing.  Seek  that  knowledge  by  faith, 
and  you  shall  not  seek  in  vain.  It  is  the  way  in  which  you  have  been 
invited.  It  is  the  way  in  which  thousands  have  gone.  And  to-day 
there  are  in  heaven  more  than  numbers  can  count,  who,  in  this  simple 
way,  believe  that  God  loves  them,  and  has  pardoned  them,  and  will 
love  them  unto  perfection,  and  who  embrace  Him  in  a  spirit  of  corres- 
ponding love.  There  are  multitudes  without  number  in  heaven  who 
triumph  over  the  victory  of  redeeming  grace.  May  more  be  added  to 
this  number — more  out  of  this  congregation  ;  more  out  of  our  families! 
And,  Christian  brethren,  may  we  grow  in  grace,  and  in  the  knowledge 
of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  unto  the  end.     Ame7i. 


PRAYER  BEFORE   THE   SERMON. 

We  rejoice  in  thee,  thou  ever-loving  and  blessed  God.  We  rejoice  in  the 
greatness  of  thy  love,  and  in  the  power  which  it  hath,  and  shall  have.  We 
rejoice  to  believe  that  it  shall  not  always  be  so, — that  by  those  in  heaven  thou 
art  known  and  adored,  though  by  a  few  only,  upon  earth ;  but  that  the 
knowledge  of  the  Lord  shall  yet  cover  the  earth,  and  that  thy  will  shall  be 
done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.  Toward  that  consummation,  we  rejoice  to 
believe,  through  darkness,  through  light,  through  storm,  through  calm, 
things  are  tending,  and  love  shall  yet  be  victorious  over  selfishness  and 
animalism ;  and  all  things  shall  praise  thee,  and  rejoice  in  thee.  We 
desire,  O  Lord,  to  quicken  our  faith,  and  to  take  comfort  in  the  midst  of  dis- 
couragements by  the  hope  of  victory.  We  desire  to  rejoice  in  the  day  of 
small  things,  when  wicked  men  are  strong  and  the  righteous  are  feeble.  We 
desire  to  take  shelter  in  the  prophecy  and  prediction  of  better  things  to 
come.  We  rejoice  that  the  conflict,  a  part  of  which  we  wage,  is  not  endless 
We  rejoice  that  sighings  and  groanings  with  travailing  in  pain  until  now 
which  have  belonged  to  the  whole  earth  sliall  not  be  perpetuated  forever. 
There  shall  be  an  end;  there  shall  be  illustrious  victory;  there  shall  be  joj 


250  THE  GROUND  OF  SALVATION, 

and  peace  abiding  undisturbed  forever ;  and  they  shall  be  crowned  with 
love.  And  all  that  are  thine  own,  purified  from  every  stain  and  from  every 
spot,  shall  rejoice  together,  being  as  the  sons  of  God. 

Now,  Lord,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  we  may  enter  into  the  greatness  of 
thy  thought,  and  into  the  zeal  with  which  thou  art  pushing  the  world  for- 
ward towards  the  day  of  final  consummation.  May  we,  in  our  own  hearts, 
be  cleansed  from  all  unrighteousness,  and  become  as  little  children.  And 
with  the  simplicity  of  faith  aud  love  may  we  embrace  JesUs,  our  Saviour,  and 
live  in  him,  and  abide  in  the  power  of  his  resurrection.  May  we  be  raised 
from  all  death  and  from  all  sin  into  newness  of  life.  "We  pray  that  we  may 
be  quicliened  by  the  divine  Spirit.  We  know  how  quickly  drops  our  nature 
back  towards  earth  again.  We  know  that  but  for  the  shining  of  the  light 
of  thy  Spirit  all  our  light  would  turn  to  darkness ;  aud  that  but  for  the 
attraction  of  the  divine  love,  we  should  fall  back  again  to  dust.  And  we 
pray  for  this  quickening  influence  of  thy  Spirit,  and  for  this  life  of  God 
^hed  abroad  in  our  hearts.  We  pray  that  sin  may  not  have  dominion  over 
us,  nor  within  us ;  that  we  may  be  able  to  overcome  temptations  and  resist 
easily  besetting  sins ;  that  we  may  be  able  to  live  by  faith,  and  have  the  vic- 
tory of  faith.  If  there  are  those  who  are  storm-bestead,  those  who  are  driven 
for  refuge  and  know  not  whither  to  flee,  O  Lord,  let  them  to-day  see  the 
heart  of  God,  the  refuge  of  the  sorrowful.  Let  them,  to-day,  behold  the 
mercy  that  is  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  help  of  every  needy  one.  Let  them  behold 
the  sweet  influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God  that  brings  us  consolation  through 
all  the  sorrows  of  life.  We  pray  for  all  that  are  tempted  more  than  they  are 
able  to  bear ;  and  for  all  that  to-day  look  back  upon  their  evil  ways  to  re- 
pent of  them,  and  turn  from  them  that  they  may  live.  Grant  them  thy 
quickening  influence  and  great  encouragement.  Meet  them  with  benedic- 
tions.   And  grant  to  them  that  forgiveness  which  they  supplicate. 

Bless  those  that  pray  for  others — parents  for  children ;  friends  for  friends ; 
companions  for  companions  ;  teachers  for  their  pupils ;  and  all  that  pray  for 
those  that  are  separated  from  them  and  are  afar  off  from  them.  We  pray 
that  this  may  be  a  golden  hour  of  their  experience.  And  bless  the  absent 
ones-  Remember  those  that  go  down  upon  tlie  great  waters.  Remember 
.those  that  are  separated  by  the  seas  from  those  that  love  them.  Remember 
those  that  are  strangers  in  foreign  lands.  Remember  those  that  are  in  the 
wilderness  where  no  man  dwelleth.  Remember  all,  this  day,  with  divine 
blessing,  whom  our  hearts  remember. 

And  we  pray,  O  Lord,  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  all 
.those  who,  to-day,  shall  make  known  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  the  unsearchable 
riches  of  divine  love.  And  wherever  they  are,  may  their  hands  be  strength- 
ened and  their  hearts  be  encouraged  ;  and  may  they  preach  faithfully  the 
word  in  season  and  out  of  season.  Even  if  they  see  no  fruit  from  their  sow- 
ing, still  may  they  sow  their  seed  by  the  side  of  all  waters. 

And  we  pray  that  thy  blessing  may  rest  upon  all  those  that  have  gone 
and  are  going  forth  to  the  poor  and  ignorant  to  bring  them  up  from  degra- 
dation, and  make  them  like  the  Master.  May  they  have  the  spirit  of  conso- 
lation in  their  work ;  and  may  they  see  that  the  travail  of  their  soul  is  pros- 
pering. 

And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  the  nations  of  the  earth.  Bring  wars, 
and  all  their  cruelties  and  sufferings,  speedily  to  an  end.  Grant  that  nations 
may  learn  war  no  more.  May  benevolence  take  the  place  of  selfishness;  and 
may  men  learn  more  to  love  and  less  to  hate.  And  may  that  kingdom  in 
which  dwelleth  righteousness  come,  and  the  whole  earth  see  the  salvation  of 
God. 

And  to  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  evermore. 
Amen, 


XV. 

Individual  ResponsibilitYo 


INVOCATION. 

Thou  gracioTis  God,  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being, 
breathe  forth  from  thine  own  abundant  lips  that  which  we  need  to  supply 
the  sources  of  oixrs.  Grant  unto  us,  this  day,  grace  to  discern  thee ;  to  be 
warmed  by  thy  love;  to  take  hold  by  faith  upon  all  the  promises  of  thy 
word.  Grant  that  we  may  in  fellowship  together  worship  thee  acceptably 
in  hymns  of  praise,  in  communion  of  prayer,  and  in  the  word  of  instruction. 
And  may  the  service  of  the  day,  may  our  meditations  by  the  way,  and 
our  enjoyments  of  home,  be  sanctified  and  rendered  meet  for  those  that  are 
to  be  heirs  of  eternal  life.    For  Christ's  sake  we  ask  it.    Amen. 

u 


INDIYIDUAL  RESPONSIBILITY. 


And  Jesus  said  unto  them,  Wliy  reason  ye,  because  ye  have  no  bread  ? 
perceive  ye  not  j'et,  neither  understand?  have  ye  your  heart  yet  hardened  ? 
Having  eyes,  see  ye  not  ?  and  having  ears,  hear  ye  not  ?  and  do  ye  not  re- 
member ?"— Mark  viii.,  17-18. 


There  is  very  much  Scripture  which  always  has  to  be  interpreted 
with  an  allowance  for  the  different  languages  in  which  it  was  written, 
the  different  nations  out  of  which  it  sprang,  and  the  difference  which 
there  is  between  Oriental  modes  of  thought  and  Oi'iental  expressions,  and 
our  modern  methods  of  thinking  and  methods  of  expression.  This  is 
apparent,  not  unfrequently,  in  the  teachings  of  our  Lord.  For  although 
the  "style,"  as  it  is  called,  which  was  employed  by  the  Saviour,  seems 
at  the  first  thought  to  be  very  simp^'^,  it  M'as  evidently  full  of  enigma, 
of  paradox,  of  parable,  of  proverb,  oJ  "  dark  sayings,"  as  they  were 
called, — unlike  our  philosophical  mode.  The  immediate  occasion  of 
these  words  which  I  have  read,  and  which  are  severer  in  seeming"  than 
they  were  in  fact,  veiled  under  the  form  of  rebuke,  was  a  caution  given 
by  Christ  to  his  disciples  to  "beware  of  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees, 
and  of  the  leaven  of  Herod."  Their  ear  caught  that  word  leaven  /  and 
they  took  it  literally  as  meaning  the  physical  idea. 

We  smile  at  their  simplicity  in  supposing  the  rebuke  to  be  because 
they  had  taken  no  bread  with  them — for  that  was  their  interpretation 
of  it.  And  he  rebukes  them  for  not  understanding  him.  He  recalls 
to  them  the  mii-acles  by  which  he  created  for  thousands  an  ample  sup- 
ply of  bread  and  of  meat ;  and  it  is  as  if  he  had  said,  "  How  could  you 
suppose  that,  because  you  had  taken  no  leaven  with  you,  I  cautioned 
you  against  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees,  meaning  that  you  must  not  bor- 
row their  leaven,  nor  make  bread  in  their  troughs  ?  It  is  another  thing 
that  I  taught ;  namely,  that  you  should  follow,  not  their  teachings 
but  mine,  and  understand,  as  it  is  time  that  you  should  understand, 
spiritual  things,  having  been  so  long  with  me,  and  having  had  so  much 
instruction.""  This  is  the  purport  of  the  passage.    They  had  the  ineana 

SUXDAV  Morning,  Dec.  U.  ISTO.  Lesson:  TaiKK  xii.  27-59.  Hymns  (Plymouth  Colloetlonj : 
Nos.  G04. 8S8.  RIV). 


252  INDIVIDUAL  EESrONSIBILITY. 

of  understanding  liim,  and  they  should  have  employed  those  means. 
This  is  his  way  of  saying,  "  Every  man  is  responsible  for  the  use  of  his 
own  foculties  in  ascertaining  all  the  truth  which  is  necessary  for  his 
conduct.  You  have  eyes  j  why  do  you  not  see?  You  have  ears^ 
why  do  you  not  hear  ? — these  senses  standing  for  faculties  at  large. 

Men  are  equipped  with  all  necessary  faculties  for  their  guidance, 
both  in  the  physical  and  in  the  moral  world,  and  they  are  practically 
held  responsible,  in  consequence,  for  the  right  use  of  their  faculties,  and 
for  right  judgments  formed  by  means  of  them.  However  many  helps 
there  may  be  in  the  world,  there  are  no  substitutes  for  a  man's  own 
judgment  and  choice  and  action.  However  many  things  there  may  be 
in  which  men  may  transfer  a  part  of  themselves,  as  it  were,  to  others, 
there  is  a  central  element  in  every  man  that  is  untransferable ;  and 
every  man  must  stand  for  himself,  think  for  himself,  find  out  truth  for 
himself,  and  follow  for  himself  that  which  is  found  out.  Whoever  may 
help  him,  and  whatever  may  throw  light  upon  the  problem,  are  col- 
lateral. He  is  the  principal.  And  this  is  not  the  law  of  certain  prom- 
inent and  strong  men  :  it  is  a  law  which  belongs  to  the  race.  It  is 
the  moral  economy  under  which  all  natural  laws  are  administered  in 
their  relations  to  men  ;  under  which  all  civil  laws  are  administered ; 
under  which  all  moral  laws  are  administered. 

This  is  a  principle  so  profound,  and  it  touches  so  many  questions, 
that  I  shall  feel  at  liberty  to  go  into  it  a  little  more  at  length  before  I 
make  the  applications  of  it. 

Responsible  individualism  is  the  constituent  element  of  govern- 
ment and  of  society,  whether  you  regard  society  as  framed  of  God,  or 
as  fashioned  of  man.  It  is  not,  then,  the  desi'gn  of  things  that  a  man 
should  simply  go  right;  because  if  to  go  right  had  been  all  that  was 
meant,  it  would  have  been  far  easier  to  make  all  men  go  right  by  mak- 
ing them  differently.  No  puppet  goes  w^rong.  Make  a  doll,  put  the 
machinery  to  it,  and  turn  the  crank,  and  it  will  go  just  as  you  mean  it 
shall,  every  time,  for  a  hundred  times,  and  never  make  a  mistake  ;  but 
it  is  a  puppet  when  you  have  got  through — no  more,  and  no  less.  And 
if  men's  merely  going  right  had  been  all  that  was  desired,  they  could 
have  been  made  after  a  very  different  pattern.  And  there  might  have 
been  a  great  economy  of  materials  practiced.  Far  less  would  be  neces- 
sary to  make  a  man  that  should  simply  go  when  the  crank  was  turned. 
If  that  had  been,  all  that  was  needed,  perfect  men  could  very  easily 
have  been  made.  People  seem  to  think  that  to  live  about  right  is  all 
that  is  required.  Not  at  all.  That  is  not  the  end.  Living  right  is 
only  the  means  to  an  end.  It  is  an  incident  to  something  greatei'. 
The  divine  idea  in  the  creation  of  the  world,  seems  to  me  to  be  man- 
hood— bulk  of  being,  variety  of  being,  power  of  being.     And  going 


INDIVIDUAL  RESPONSIBILITY.  253 

right  is  simply  the  way  by  which  men  are  to  come  to  that  augmented 
being. 

That  men  should  find  out  what  is  right,  therefore,  and  learn  how  to 
fulfill  what  they  find  out,  is  as  important  as  that  they  should  go  right. 
It  is  the  finding  out  that  makes  men  grow.  It  is  the  exertion  to  do 
what  you  have  ascertained  against  difiieulties,  that  proves,  develops, 
forms  and  authenticates  manhood.  For,  to  be  a  self-centered  individual, 
plenary  in  reason  and  moral  sense,  to  be  like  God — that  is  the  design 
which  God  says  he  is  working  out  in  man,  in  the  heaven,  and  upon 
earth.  And  the  method  by  which  he  works  men  toward  that  grand  de- 
sign is  to  lay  on  every  man  the  responsibility  of  using  the  faculties  with 
which  he  has  been  endowed,  in  their  own  spheres ;  putting  him  to  find 
out  the  truth,  to  guide  himself  by  that  which  he  finds  out ;  giving 
him  ample  helps,  collateral  suggestions,  pattern,  counsel  and  law, 
giving  him  none  of  these  things  in  such  a  peremptory  form  as  to  super- 
sede his  own  individual  liberty  and  responsibility  for  finding  that  which 
is  right,  and  then  doing  that  which  he  has  found  out. 

This  is  true  of  our  senses,  and  of  all  their  commerce  in  the  natural 
world.  Our  eye,  our  ear,  our  hand  may  be  trained ;  but  after  all,  there 
is  no  training,  there  can  be  no  training,  there  never  was  any  training, 
which  did  not  leave  the  individual  responsibility  untouched.  If  a  man 
says,  "  To  ray  eyes  that  is  level,"  when  it  is  precipitous,  and  I  accept  his 
sight  in  lieu  of  my  own,  and  walk  over  the  precipice,  I  tumble  to  the 
bottom  none  the  less  because  I  take  his  sight  instead  of  my  own.  If  a 
man  says,  "  It  is  two  yards,"  and  I  stand  just  a  yard  from  him  as  he 
swings  a  whip,  I  none  the  less  take  the  whip  because  I  believe  him 
instead  of  believing  myself  It  is  for  me  to  see,  and  to  follow  my  see- 
ing. I  may  help  myself ;  I  may  get  what  light  I  can  from  sources 
outside  of  myself;  I  may  form  my  judgment  in  any  complex  case 
by  the  assistance  of  other  people's  senses  ;  but,  after  all,  I  am  the  pope 
of  my  own  senses;  I  am  the  sovereign  of  my  own  faculties;  and  it  is 
designed,  either  that  I  should  form  a  judgment,  and  act  according  to 
it,  or  that  I  should  take  the  penalties  and  the  consequences.  And  all 
the  early  part  of  our  life  is  spent  in  learning  how  to  use  our  senses ;  in 
learning  how  to  be  a  being.  The  child  grows  first  by  learning  how 
himself  to  use  every  muscle,  every  bone,  every  limb  ;  how  then  to  use 
those  higher  senses  which  stand  intimately  connected  with  mentality ; 
and  how,  afterwards,  little  by  little,  having  gone  from  sensuousness  to 
intelligence,  to  go  from  mere  intelligence  to  sentiment,  and  from  senti- 
ment to  moral  sentiment,  or  to  that  which  is  right,  and  not  to  that 
which  is  fact  alone. 

I  do  not  undertake  to  say  that  we  may  not  derive  great  benefit  from 
the  foregoing  example  of  others  ;  from  what  they  have  learned.    Books 


254  INDIVIDUAL  RE8P0NSIBILITY. 

may  help  us  train  our  senses ;  but  no  book,  and  no  teacher,  and  no  person 
outside  of  me  can  ever  dispossess  me  of  this,  that  I  am  primarily  set  to 
find  out  by  the  use  of  my'  senses  all  the  truth  that  belongs  to  the  sphere 
in  which  they  act.  The  sovereignty  of  the  individual — a  term  very 
much  abused,  and  yet  a  terra  that  may  convey  a  correct  idea — is  as- 
serted throughout  every  sphere  of  man's  action. 

It  is  the  same  in  the  transaction  of  secular  busineas.  It  is  the  best 
way,  although  it  is  the  hardest  way,  to  hold  every  person  responsible 
for  his  self-helpfulness,  for  his  individual  correctness  of  judgment,  and 
individual  correctness  of  measui'esor  means  applied  to  ends.  Men  seek 
to  find  out  ways  which  shall  release  them  from  liability  to  mistakes. 
They  raaivel,  frequently,  that  there  have  not  been  such  ways  found 
out.  They  think  that  when  the  millennial  day  comes,  things  will  be  so 
organized  in  this  world  that  all  things  will  come  symmetrically,  and 
that  men  will  come  into  affairs  naturally,  peacefully,  happily,  every  man 
finding  everything  done  to  hand,  or  else  the  doing  of  it  being  so  nat- 
ural and  so  easy  that  he  will  have  no  thought,  no  care,  no  ache,  no 
study,  no  responsibility.  Never :  never :  never  ! 

If  iron  is  to  be  made  into  a  tool,  it  has  to  go  into  the  fire,  and  on 
to  the  anvil.  Otherwise  a  tool  can  never  be  made  of  it.  And  there 
never  will  come  a  day  in  which  a  man  can  be  made  into  a  man,  while 
th6  economy  of  this  world  lasts,  except  by  going  into  the  fire,  and  on 
to  the  anvil,  and  under  the  hammer.  Manhood,  if  it  comes  at  all,  must 
come  through  a  great  many  mistakes,  and  a  good  deal  of  pain  from 
those  mistakes. 

Now,  take  a  man  in  business.  If  he  is  readily  expert  in  that  busi- 
ness, and  he  becomes  so  by  easy  ways,  it  must  be  a  very  simple  busi- 
ness. No  man  ever  becomes,  in  secular  affairs,  broad,  multifarious  in 
power,  eminent  and  pre-eminent,  except  it  be  by  a  tentative  series  of 
endeavors  ;  except  it  be  by  a  probation  which  implies  perplexity,  mis- 
take, blunder,  a  thousand  painful  forms  of  experience. 

Is  that  necessary?  Was  it  necessary  to  the  original  conception  of 
such  a  world  as  God  was  pleased  to  create  ?  It  certainly  is  the  fact  in 
respect  to  this  world  that  he  did  create.  What  other  worlds  he  may 
have  created,  I  do  not  know  ;  but  so  far  as  this  world  is  concerned 
the  divine  law  is  in  that  direction.  It  is  laying  the  responsibility  upon 
all  the  powers  of  a  man,  in  his  secular  affairs,  of  finding  out  the  truth, 
of  ascertaining  that  which  is  right.  The  skillful,  the  lucrative,  the  hon- 
orable, the  pleasurable — all  these  things  are  found  out.  And  after  the 
world  has  been  finding  out  for  six  thousand  years  and  more,  no  man 
can  be  born  now,  and  not  have  to  find  out  just  as  much  as  they  did  who 
were  of  the  first  generation.  For  no  man  ever  transmitted  his  experi- 
ence to  anybody  else.  Really  an  experience  does  not  become  mine  till 
I  have  realized  it  in  my  own  action. 


INDIVIDUAL  RESPONSIBILITY.  255 

A  father  brings  up  his  children.  lie  has  gone  tlirough  the  school 
of  experience.  He  has  committed  innumerable  mistakes  ;  and  he  can 
point  to  this  or  that  mistake  and  save  the  child  from  it,  and  so  abbre- 
viate his  course.  But  there  is  one  thing  that  parents  never  can  do : 
they  never  can  bring  up  their  child  so  that  he  will  be  a  skillful  man 
of  the  world,  without  suffering ;  without  committing  blunders ;  without 
falling  into  endless  mistakes ;  without  having  been  obliged  to  ply  to 
the  very  root  his  own  faculties,  his  observation,  his  judgment  and  his 
will.  That  you  cannot  help.  Everybody  must  go  through  that  school 
or  else  he  has  no  business  in  this  woi-ld. 

It  is  precisely  the  same  in  civil  life.  A  government  that  thinks  for 
its  people,  or  that  undertakes  to  think  for  them,  dwarfs  them  at  once. 
Such  a  government  is  what  is  called  a  paternal  government^  and  is  the 
fool's  ideal  of  a  government.  It  is  a  government  of  fatuity.  It  is  a 
government  that  thinks  just  how  its  people  ought  to  act,  and  then  lays 
down  all  its  thoughts  in  exact  concatenation,  and  then  has  physical  mo- 
tives by  which  the  whole  people  train  as  if  they  were  but  a  machine. 
Such  a  government  may  be  c^t^  paternal,  and  men  may  admire  the 
order  of  such  a  government ;  but  it  has  no  education  in  it.  It  has  no 
developing  power  in  it.  It  is  a  machine,  and  it  makes  men  machines. 
And  there  never  was  an  ecclesiastical  or  civil  government  that  under- 
took to  think  for  men,  and  tell  them  how  to  think,  and  to  act  for  them, 
and  tell  them  how  to  act,  that  it  did  not  take  from  them  the  power  of 
thinking  and  acting  to  any  purpose.  There  was  never  a  govern- 
ment of  Church  or  State  that  took  from  men  the  necessity  of  indi- 
vidual responsibility,  that  made  men  that  were  worth  having. 

As  I  shall  show,  the  sublimest  undertaking  of  it  was  in  the  Jewish 
economy.  "  What  the  law  could  not  do  in  that  it  was  weak,"  says  the 
apostle.  It  was  a  trial  and  a  failure.  And  if  that  failed,  there  is  noth- 
ing else  of  the  sort  that  will  ever  succeed.  But  I  shall  speak  more  at 
length  upon  that  in  a  few  moments. 

Minute  rules  for  conduct,  for  the  sake  of  superseding  personal  re- 
sponsibility on  the  part  of  every  single  citizen,  makes  machine-men.  It 
seems  easier  to  live  in  such  a  way  as  this.  Men  think  it  abbreviates 
the  processes  of  life.  But  then,  it  generates  a  life  that  is  not  worth 
having.  It  is  not  in  analogy  with  nature.  It  is  not  the  design  of  na- 
ture to  make  a  grand  city,  but  to  make  grand  citizens.  It  is  not  im- 
portant that  there  should  be  a  magnificent  nation,  but  it  is  important 
that  the  individual  elements  of  the  nation  should  be  large,  and  self- 
helpful,  and  vital  in  thought  and  in  purpose.  Yet,  time  and  history 
have  run  perpetually  to  making,  not  full  men,  but  something  less  than 
men.  Churches,  cities,  nations,  have  been  built  up  as  if  the  aggregate 
name  was  a  more  important  thing  than  the  special  element.     It  is  the 


256  INDIVIDUAL  RESPONSIBILITY, 

same  in  our  moral  sphere.  Principles  are  given  to  us.  Men  find  out 
the  applications  of  these  principles  on  every  side,  in  themselves,  in  their 
fellow  men,  in  their  minor  organizations,  and  in  their  larger  reach,  fur 
time  and  for  eternity.  The  responsibility  is  laid  on  us,  not  simply  of 
finding  out  what  has  been  told  us,  but  of  finding  out  a  great  deal  that 
has  not  been  told  us.  We  are  not  to  suppose  that  men  are  to  be  left 
absolutely  alone  in  such  a  world  as  this  without  any  helps ;  without 
any  foregoing  experience,  recorded  and  reported  ;  without  any  guides 
whatever.  But  in  all  cases  the  man  is  the  superior — not  the  guide. 
He  is  not  to  be  judged  by,  but  is  to  judge  his  creed,  his  church,  and 
his  conduct.  Man  is  superior  to  his  circumstances.  I  do  not  say  in 
point  of  view,  but  I  do  say  in  point  of  ideal,  this  is  the  design  of  God, 
plainly  indicated.  All  helps  are  good,  except  the  helps  that  smother 
self-help.  All  helps  are  to  be  employed  as  so  many  excitants  of  one's 
self  All  other  men's  thinkings  are  good  for  you  if  they  make  you 
think.  If  they  overlay  your  thoughts  with  what  is  called  "  knowledge," 
they  are  bad  for  you.  Other  men's  thoughts  are  like  manure  on  farmed 
soil,  not  designed  to  be  the  thing  that  is  good,  but  to  stimulate  to  the 
production  of  that  which  is  good.  And  so  all  teaching,  and  all  think- 
ing, and  all  guiding,  and  all  experience  given  to  man,  are  given  to  him 
only  as  so  many  stimulants  to  develop  in  him  more  power  than  he 
would  have  had  without  them.  And  they  are  doing  their  work  when 
they  are  making  him  work  ;  but  not  when  they  supersede  his  work, 
or  substitute  something  else  for  it.  These  things  are  helps,  therefore^ 
not  governors. 

There  is  an  exception  in  cases  Avhere  a  man  is  not  a  man.  A  child 
is  to  be  helped.  During  the  time  that  he  is  an  animal,  and  not  a  man, 
the  experience  of  the  parent  is  to  be  substituted  for  his  lack  of  experi- 
ence.    And  we  do  not  let  him  come  into  this  reasoning  at  all. 

There  is  only  one  other  exception,  namely,  that  of  persons  who  are 
chililj:£S_all  their  life  long — for  there  are  some  so  weak  that  they  never 
outgrow  being  children,  and  go  out  of  life  the  same  size  as  they  came 
into  it.  I  admit  that  there  is  to  be  an  economy  in  every  wise  society, 
to  take  care  of  the  feeble — the  feeble-minded. 

But  these  are  always  abnormal,  exceptional  cases ;  whereas,  the 
great  principle  goes  on,  that  it  is  the  divine  idea  of  the  development 
of  man  to  bring  to  bear  upon  him  such  stimulating  influences  as  shall 
compel  him,  having  eyes,  to  see,  having  ears,  to  hear,  and  having  rea- 
soning faculties,  to  think,  so  that  he  shall  be  educated,  and  self-edu- 
cated, and  be  made  more  a  man  by  that  very  process  of  development. 

Now  for  some  applications. 

The  first  is,  to  throw  light  on  democratic  governments,  and  also  on 
absolute  governments,   of  which  latter  we  have  had  a  very  lively 


INDIVIDUAL  RESPONSIBILITY.  257 

specimen  in  Paris.  Some  of  ouv  traveled  popinjays  come  back  from 
Europe,  talking  about  the  superb  order  of  Paris.  They  talk  about  the 
splendid  postal  system  there,  and  the  splendid  civic  systems.  They 
tell  us  that  you  can  walk  through  the  streets  there,  in  the  middle  of  the 
night,  in  any  direction.  The  police  arrangements,  they  say,  are  so 
complete,  that  one  is  perfectly  safe.  They  represent  everything  as 
being  orderly  in  the  highest  degree  there.  When  they  go  away,  they 
are  proud  of  our  democratic  government ;  but  when  they  return,  they 
are  full  of  admiration  for  autocratic  governments.  "Look,"  they  say, 
"at  the  condition  of  Ncav  York  city?  What  kind  of  a  government  is 
there  there  ?  What  safety  is  there  there  for  a  man's  reputation,  his 
money,  or  his  life  ?  All  is  misrule  and  discord  in  that  city.  Here  is 
self-government  for  you,"  these  aforesaid  popinjays  say,  "and^ere  is 
autocratic  government:  give  me  that.  Give  me  a  government  where 
there  is  order  and  peace  ;  where  the  great  ends  of  society  are  perfectly 
served;  and  Avheia  there  is  safety  for  life  and  pro]Derty  and  reputa- 
tion." 

Is  that  the  only  thing,  then,  in  this  world  that  is  good  for  anything 
— the  safety  of  reputation,  the  safety  of  property,  and  the  safety  of 
life?  The  least  valuable  thing  in  this  world  is  life,  frequently.  If  you 
could  only  make  a  good  selection  of  men,  there  would  be  nothing  so 
good  as  killing,  in  this  world.  The  trouble  is  that  promiscuous  killing 
generally  goes  from  the  bad  toward  the  good.  But  the  earth  is  bur- 
dened with  worthless  population. 

Now,  that  which  the  autocratic  government  of  a  European  city  ac- 
complishes, is  this  :  it  takes  away  from  its  citizens  the  drill  of  thinking. 
It  deprives  them  of  the  opportunity  of  learning  how  to  take  the  re- 
sponsibility of  organizing  order  among  themselyes.  And  that  which 
is  an  apparent  blot  upon  democratic  institutions  (and  it  is  a  difficulty ; 
it  is  a  penalty;  it  is  a  ])ain)  is,  that  it  does  not  immediately  accomplish 
as  good  ends  as  an  absolute  and  aristocratic  government.  There  is  less 
personal  safety  ;  there  are  more,  I  was  going  to  say,  "jobs,"  under  a  de- 
mocracy than  under  an  autocracy.  But  this  last  I  take  back  :  there  are 
more  "jobs"  under  an  autocracy  than  under  a  demo.cracy — though  it 
will  surprise  you  to  hear  me  say  it.  There  arc  apparent  advantages 
in  an  autocratic  government.  ]3ut  in  the  long  run,  a  population  that 
has  been  brought  up  under  democratic  rule. (I  am  not  speaking  of  our 
party  phrase,  but  of  the  broad  philosophic  sense  of  the  term  democracy) 
— in  the  long  run  a  community  brought  up  to  think  for  itself,  to  organ- 
ize for  itself,  to  take  the  penalties  of  it,  to  bear  the  evils  which  accom- 
pany it  until  they  become  unbearable,  and  then  to  cure  them,  and  so 
to  cure  them  that  they  shall  not  bi-eak  out  again — in  the  long  run  they 
are  superior  in  intelligence,  in  genius  and  power,  to  a  generation  of 


258  INDIVIDUAL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

men  that  have  been  brought  up  iu  the  puppet  order  of  Paris,  which 
some  men  so  covet  and  want. 

But  these  men,  without  manhood  in  themselves,  do  not  miss  it  in 
oiher  people  ;  and  so  they  go  to  foreign  cities,  and  come  back  and  brag 
over  them,  and  dispraise  our  own  cities.  Not  that  there  are  not  evils 
that  go  along  with  self-government;  not  that  there  are  not  monstrous 
evils  under  a  democratic  government  which  wait  long,  that  the  sword 
under  an  autocratic  government  cures  quick — for  the  sword  does  cure 
diseases  quick.  But  while  it  cures  the  diseases,  it  destroys  citizenship. 
On  the  other  hand,  citizenship  here  is  saved  while  the  evils  are  wait- 
ing long  to  be  cured  by  the  citizens  themselves.  A  republican  gov- 
ernment in  a  hundred  points  is  weaker  than  an  autocratic  government; 
but  in  Oiis  one  point  it  is  the  strongest  government  that  ever  the  sun 
shone  upon — that  it  has  educated  a  race  of'  men  that  are  men.  And 
it  is  to  make  men  that  the  world  was  built — though  you  might  not 
suspect  it  by  the  specimens. 

If,  then,  your  conception  of  municipal  government  is  a  city,  w^ound 
like  a  watch,  in  which  all  the  elements  are  simply  meant  to  go  Avith  ab- 
solute regularity  ;  if  what  you  want  is  government  like  a  watch  which 
runs  just  so  every  day  from  year  to  year,  in  the  same  temperature, 
without  variation,  never  changing,  and  keeping  perfect  time,  then  an 
autocracy  is  what  you  want.  But  if  you  want  a  government  that  shall 
develop  human  nature,  and  make  it  fresh,  and  various,  and  always  new 
and  progressive,  then  you  cannot  have  one  of  these  regulated  govern- 
ments. You  must  let  men  find  their  own  way,  and  bump  their  own 
heads,  curing  the  bumps ;  you  must  let  them  fall  into  mistakes,  and 
learn  by  falling  into  them  to  keep  out  ot  them ;  and  by  and  by,  when 
enough  have  done  it,  by  cooperation  they  will  cure  the  evil.  Some- 
times the  constitution  breaks  down  before  the  cure  can  be  established ; 
but  where  there  is  a  constitution  that  can  bear  the  strain,  and  the  cure 
is  established,  it  is  a  glorious  cure.  And  give  me  strong  men  rather 
than  strong  cities. 

Secondly.  We  see,  in  the  light  of  these  principles,  the  contrast 
actually  existing  between  Judaism  and  Christianity.  When  the 
Israelites  were  brought  out  of  Egypt  they  were  slaves.  The  great 
principle  which  Moses  undertook  to  inculcate  was  righteousiiess. 
Righteousness  means  acting  according  to  a  straight  line,  as  it  were. 
He  laid  down  ordinances  and  laws  which  regulated  every  part  of  every 
man's  conduct  in  the  nation.  Those  ordinances  and  laws  went  into 
men's  dwellings,  and  into  their  industrial  occupations.  There  was  an 
autocracy  established  in  Church  and  State;  and  their  religion  and 
patriotism  were  one  and  the  same  thing.  It  undertook  to  pervade 
everything.  Every  day  was  marked  out,  and  every  hour  of  every  day, 


INDIVIDUAL  REarONSIBILITY.  259 

for  worship.  The  particular  place  where  they  were  to  worship  was 
pointed  out.  They  were  instructed  how  they  were  to  worship,  and 
what  they  were  to  worship  with.  Not  only  were  they  instructed  that 
they  were  to  worship  with  certain  elements,  but  they  were  instructed 
how  those  elements  were  to  be  prepared,  running  into  the  most  extra- 
ordinary minuteness,  until  men  were  perfectly  meshed  and  webbed  by 
provisions  for  doing  everything  right.  And  as  long  as  they  were 
very  low  and  weak,  this  economy  carried  them  up,  and  educated  them 
until,  if  they  could  escape  they  would  be  benefitted,  but  if  not  they 
would  be  injured.  That  which  is  the  best  thing  for  a  child  when  he 
is  fourteen  years  of  age  is  often  the  worst  thing  for  him  when  he  is 
twenty-four.  Clothes  that  are  a  very  good  fit  for  children  when  they 
are  six  years  old,  are  a  very  bad  fit  for  them  when  they  are  sixteen 
years  old,  and  must  be  let  out,  or  they  Avill  split  out  in  every  direc- 
tion. The  Mosaic  system  was  one  of  rigid  laws.  The  Christian  sys- 
tem was  one  without  any  instrumentation  ;  without  one  single  institu- 
tion appointed  rigorously ;  without  one  single  point  that  represented 
the  precision  and  imperativeness  of  the  Mosaic  institution.  Our  Lord 
instituted  a  spiritual  kingdom,  and  put  the  stimulus  upon  men  to 
develop  reason  and  conscience  and  spirituality,  and  left  them  to  do  it 
in  perfect  freedom. 

This  does  not  argue  that  Christianity  should  not  have  days  ;  but 
they  are  not  to  be  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord"  days.  It  does  not  argue 
that  there  should  not  be  institutions  ;  but  they  are  not  to  be  rigorously 
authoritative  or  obligatory  institutions.  They  are  to  be  institutions 
such  as  we  shall  have  found  to  be  useful,  and  which  we  shall  there- 
fore use,  not  because  they  are  imposed  upon  us,  but  because  they  are 
useful.  Christianity  lets  tis  have  all  manner  of  helps.  But  liberty  is 
the  essential  element  of  it.  Institutions,  ordinances,  creeds,  churches, 
priests,  all  manner  of  imposed  helps,  Christianity  ignores  as  obliga- 
tory. It  permits  them  if  men  want  to  use  thera ;  but  it  takes  the 
ground  that  if  they  do  use  them  it  is  because  they  choose  to,  and  not 
because  God  obliges  them  to.  Christianity  has  infinite  liberty  of  ap- 
propriation ;  but  it  is  not  under  obligation  to  have  a  church,  nor  a 
Sabbath,  nor  a  creed,  nor  any  other  thing.     It  is  free. 

Judaism  was  a  system  of  precise  institutions.  Christianity  is  a 
charter  of  liberty.  Judaism  brought  men  up  a  certain  way,  and  could 
not  go  a  step  further.  Then  came  Christ,  and  unfolded  the  supernal 
manhood  of  God  in  the  flesh.  And  from  that  point  human  nature 
sprang  up,  and  sprang  out.  And  if  Christianity  had  been  kept  to  this 
its  fundamental  idea  ;  if  its  principle  of  liberty,  its  stimulating  power, 
its  conception  as  to  the  wisdom  of  God  and  the  power  of  God  unto  sal- 
vation, had  been  its  main  force,  we  should  have  been  advanced  a  great 
many  ages  beyond  the  point  at  which  we  are  now. 


260  INDIVIDUAL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

In  the  tliird  place,  the  reason  why  Christianity  has  not  clone  more, 
is  because  this  principle  of  life  has  been  largely  ignored.  Chi-istianity 
fell  into  the  old  tendency  very  speedily  of  providing  for  men,  and  not 
leaving  them  to  provide  for  themselves.  It  undertook  to  order  men's 
worship  through  its  Church — the  great  mediaeval  church,  which  is  the 
most  sublime,  elaborate,  and  astonishing  system  of  organization  that 
the  world  was  ever  cursed  with  :  blessed,  they  say ;  cursed^  I  say. 
Christianity,  enshrined  in  this  vast  catacomb  of  mazes  and  labyrinths, 
has  stood  light  in  the  way  of  itself  It  has  undertaken  to  do  again, 
by  old  barbaric  instruments,  what  it  should  have  outgrown,  and  what 
the  woild  is  fast  outgrowing.  And  spiritual  liberty  was  deposed,  and 
ecclesiastical  despotism  took  the  place  of  it. 

Now,  if  I  were  going  to  have  either,  I  would  have  Judaism.  The 
old  Jewish  system  of  religion  was  the  nearest  to  sublime  natural  relig- 
ion of  any  system  in  the  world ;  that  is,  it  came  nearer  to  the  aspects 
of  material  nature  than  did  the  superficial  moralities  and  refinements 
that  grew  up  under  the  great  mediaeval  system,  and  are  embodied  in 
it.  I  should  prefer  Judaism,  pure  and  simple,  to  Romanism,  pure  and 
simple.  It  is  more  manly,  more  natural,  more  divine,  more  stimulating, 

I  remark,  fourthly,  that  this  is  the  fundamental  difierence  between 
all  hierarchal  churches  and  all  democratic  churches,  or  churches  of  the 
common  people.  One  of  these  modes  of  organization  attempts,  in  a 
ministerial  way,  to  provide  for  every  act  of  worship,  for  every  cere- 
mony, for  every  belief,  for  every  routine,  for  all  government.  The 
other  of  these  modes  of  organization  inspires  men  to  provide  these 
things  for  themselves,  and  lets  them  have  liberty  to  do  it. 

Oftentimes  I  hear  men  say,  "  I  do  not  believe  in  Congregational- 
ism, it  leaves  everything  so  untied,  so  hap-hazard.  It  has  no  govern- 
ment, no  process  of  order.  Men,  under  it,  do  not  know  exactly  what 
to  do,  and  do  pretty  much  as  they  have  a  mind  to.  I  believe  in  a 
church  that  just  divides  the  year  up,  and  divides  all  the  chapters  of 
the  Bible  up  so  that  there  shall  be  a  certain  portion  of  Scripture  to  be 
read  every  day ;  so  that  when  a  man  gets  up  in  the  morning,  he  shall 
not  be  at  a  loss  what  to  do,  but  shall  only  have  to  see  what  day  it  is, 
and  then  look  and  find  the  passages  of  Scripture  that  he  is  to  read,  and 
the  prayers  that  he  is  to  say,  and  directions  as  to  the  other  duties  he  is 
to  perforin  It  is  pleasant  to  have  everything  arranged  for  one  in  that 
way."  It  is>  very  convenient ;  but  is  it  better  for  a  man  to  be  baptized 
into  a  specific  system,  and  never  take  off  his  swaddling  clothes,  and  have 
a  nurse  to  take  him  up  as  a  babe  and  carry  him  through  life,  and  never 
have  anything  to  think  about,  nor  anything  to  do  ;  never  be  obliged 
to  vex  himself  with  responsibility ;  but  lie  brooded  and  sucking  all 
through  life  ?    There  are  a  great  many  who  have  that  conception ;  and 


INDIVIDUAL  RESPONSIBILITT.  261 

any  church  that  comes  near  to  that ;  that  is  to  say,  any  church  that 
does  everything  for  a  man ;  any  church  that  takes  from  a  man  the 
necessity  of  thinking  for  himself,  and  thinking  till  his  head  aches  ;  any 
church  that  takes  all  perplexities  out  of  a  man's  way,  so  that  he  is 
never  annoyed,  but  is  always  easy — any  such  church  just  suits  them. 
But  no  true  church  should  undertake  to  mechanically  organize  life 
60  as  to  supersede  or  cover  down  this  fundamental  principle  of  God's 
"v^ord — the  necessity  of  every  man's  organizing  his  own  life.  Such 
churches  are  very  much  in  vogue.  And  far  be  it  from  me  to  under- 
take to  say  that  there  is  not  a  liberty  on  the  part  of  men  to  organize 
such  churches.  Humanly  speaking  there  is  such  a  liberty.  What  I 
am  pointing  out  is  this :  that  the  educating  power  of  such  churches  is 
not  so  great  as  the  educating  power  of  those  churches  which  seem  to  be 
far  more  scattered  and  disorderly — ^but  seem  so  only  because  the  principle 
of  individual  development  does  drive  men  asunder  more  than  the  prin- 
ciple of  an  organized  government,  and  because  this  principle  of  j)er- 
sonal  liberty  makes  men  strong  and  robust. 

This  principle  is  more  valuable  than  the  simple  idea  of  order — 
though  I  recognize  the  order,  and  well  know  that  the  distribution 
of  both  elements  is  desirable.  Order,  the  habit  of  coordinate  acting,  is 
important ;  but  it  is  not  sufficient.  There  need  to  be,  in  addition  to 
this,  the  principles  of  individual  opportunity  and  individual  obligation. 

Fifthly,  this  question  takes  hold  of  the  difficulties  which  men  find 
in  the  Bible.  People  often  say,  "  I  cannot  believe  that  that  is  a  revela- 
tion, because  nobody  seems  to  know  what  it  teaches.  There  are  in- 
finite diversities  among  believers  of  the  Bible  as  to  the  doctrines  which 
it  contains.  A  revelation  from  God,  it  seems  to  me,  must  settle  some- 
thing. How  can  the  Bible  be  God's  revelation  when  it  is  so  full  of  ob- 
scurities ;  when  it  is  so  full  of  doctrines  that  are  enigmatical ;.  when 
there  are  apparent  contradictions  in  it ;  when  there  are  historical  col- 
lisions in  it  ?  It  cannot  be  from  God ;  for  if  it  were  it  would  be 
perfect."  Would  it  ?.  Was  not  this  material  woi-ld  from  God  ?  and 
is  it  perfect  ?  Did  not  it  begin  in  germs  ?  and  did  not  these  germs 
go  through  all  forms  of  development — that  is  to  say,  from  the  lowest 
stage  of  imperfection  clear  up  to  the  highest?  And  is  not  that  the 
peculiar  characteristic  in  the  world — germination,  and  development  all 
the  way  up  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  point?  And  is  not  that,  if  I 
may  so  say,  the  trade-mark  of  God — early  imperfection,  and  late,  self- 
evolved  perfection  ? 

If,  therefore,  there  was  to  be  a  divine  revelation,  do  you  suppose 
that  God  would  have  begun  by  making  every  thing  so  plain  at  the 
beginning  that  men  should  have  been  saved  all  the  perplexity  of  find- 
ing out  the  truth  for  themselves?  Is  it  not  more  likely  that  he  would  have 


262  INDIVIDUAL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

done  just  as  he  has  done — given  men  gradually  all  manner  ot  traditions 
that  have  been  handed  down  from  the  earliest  ages,  as  indications  of 
the  way  in  which  the  race  had  developed,  and  left  them  to  work  out 
principles  froni  these? 

Revelation  is  in  strict  analogy  with  the  world  itself;  and  both  of 
them  are  conformed  to  this  one  central  element.  Having  eyes,  we 
must  learn  to  use  them,  and  must  learn  to  see  right  with  them.  Hav- 
ing ears,  we  must  learn  to  use  them,  and  must  learn  to  hear  right  with 
them.  Having  reason  we  must  learn  to  use  that,  and  must  take  th«, 
responsibility  of  using  it  right.  And  having  amoral  sense,  we  must  learn 
to  employ  it  in  finding  out  the  ways  of  God  toward  men.  For  you 
have  got  to  find  them  out  if  you  are_"to  know  them.  Another  may  help 
you ;  but,  after  all,  the  central  responsibility  rests  in  you. 

But  men  say,  "  It  would  be  so  much  easier  if  one  knew  just  what 
duty  is,  and  knew  how  to  do  it."  But  the  finding  it  out  is  the  most 
wholesome  part  of  it.  That  is  the  very  thing  which  keeps  men  awake, 
and  keeps  them  thinking,  and  makes  them  discriminating.  Finding 
out  what  is  true,  is  just  as  important  in  education  as  the  truth  itself 
when  it  is  found  out.  And  finding  out  the  way ;  the  very  thing  that 
makes  men  pufi"  and  murmur — the  wear  and  care  and  anxiety  to 
know  what  they  ought  to  think  and  know — these  things  are  a  part 
of  God's  great  educating  scheme  in  this  world.  A  revelation,  therefore, 
which  took  all  care  and  all  difiiculties  out  of  the  way,  would,  by  so 
much,  lack  the  nature  of  being  a  divine  one. 

Lastly,  in  such  a  world  as  this,  where  the  great  central  principle  is 
that  every  man  is  responsible  to  God  and  not  to  his  fellowmen;  responsi- 
ble for  his  thoughts,  for  his  feelings,  for  his  character,  for  his  develop- 
ment into  all  strength  and  stature  of  perfect  manhood — in  such  a  world 
as  this,  there  is  every  reason  why  men  that  sit  under  the  constant 
teaching  of  the  Gospel  and  Gospel  institutions,  should  cease,  and 
should  a  long  time  ago  have  ceased,  from  looking  at  others  for  models 
and  for  motive  power.  We  are  accustomed  to  grow  under  the  super- 
stitious influence  of  a  medifeval  age  to  such  an  extent  that  men  scarcely 
think  that  they  can  live  or  die  without  the  priest.  The  child  that  is  born 
without  the  baptismal  touch  is  not  fairly  born.  The  child  cannot  die 
and  go  out  of  the  world  unless  the  priest  prepares  him.  If  men  are  sick, 
the  minister  must  come  to  them.  The  man  of  the  house  may  be  a  great 
deal  deeper  and  wiser  and  stronger ;  but  then,  he  is  not "  ordained."  We 
feel  that  there  is  a  certain  sanctity  in  the  church,  and  that  men  must  have 
something  of  this  outside  ecclesiastical  influence  before  they  can  ven- 
ture forward.  Nay,  men  seem  to  go  to  churches  very  much  as  fishes 
come  in  shoals  upon  the  coast  when  the  net  is  thrown  around  them 
and  they  are  drawn  in.       Men  wait  for  revivals ;  men  wait  for  their 


INDIVIDUAL  RESPONSIBILITY.  263 

neighbors  to  talk  with  them ;  men  wait  for  the  minister  to  go  after 
thera.  Men  that  have  come  to  a  degree  of  seriousness  which  is  ample 
as  a  motive  power ;  men  that  have  long  been  instructed  in  the  way  of 
duty  to  men,  and  of  love  to  God,  and  of  love  to  men  ;  men  that  have 
sat  under  the  teachings  of  the  word  of  God  from  week  to  week  and 
from  year  to  year — such  men  wait  for  some  forth-j)utting  influence  that 
shall  bring  them  in,  irrespective  of  their  own  volition. 

Now  this  is  not  becoming  in  you.  You  ought  long  ago  to  have  been 
independent  of  these  collateral  helps.  There  are  many  persons  in  this 
congregation  who  ought  to  come  to  the  question  of  personal  reli^'ion 
directly,  and  rise  up,  and  go  home,  and  say,  "  The  question  has  been 
thought  over,  and  has  been  settled :  I  am  a  Christian."  Men  come  to 
me  and  sa}',  "I  am  serious."  It  is  an  invitation  for  me  to  take  them  by 
the  hand  as  I  would  a  little  child,  who  was  learning  to  walk,  and  lead 
them,  and  teach  them  how  to  walk.  But  full-grown  men,  instructed 
from  their  cradle,  knowing  just  as  much  of  the  essential  truths  of  re- 
ligion as  I  do  myself,  ought  not  to  come  to  me  in  leading  strings,  nor 
oblige  me  to  go  to  them.  You  ought  to  stand  up  in  your  households, 
and  say  to  your  children,  "  From  this  day  forward  I  serve  the  Lord 
Jesus."  And  you  ought  to  report  yourself  from  the  household  to  the 
church,  and  say,  "  I  have  chosen  God's  service."  It  is  not  becoming,  and 
it  is  not  necessary,  that  your  neighbors  should  force  you  out,  or  that 
there  should  be  got  up  for  you  some  special  excitement  or  summer  of 
revival,  in  order  that  you  may  be  willing  that  the  ice  in  you  should 
thaw  out  and  tlow  down.  It  is  in  every  man's  power  to  choose  the 
service  of  God,  and  to  begin  that  service,  and  declare  it  to  the  indi- 
vidual, to  the  family,  to  the  church.  There  ought  not,  in  such  a  church 
as  this,  to  be  a  month  in  which  there  should  not  be  men  and  women 
coming  to  me  with  hope  blossoming  and  joy  effulgent,  saying,  "Behold 
what  the  Lord  has  done  for  me!"  But  as  it  is,  men  wait  to  be  helped. 

When  the  man  that  was  paralytic  would  go  down  into  the  pool, 
others  nimbler  than  he  stepped  down  before  him  ;  and  that  was  hia 
plea  for  help.  But  if  some  great  sturdy  fellow  that  had  the  use  of  his 
limbs  liad  stood  round  there  waiting  for  some  one  to  take  him  up  and 
carry  him  into  the  pool,  what  would  you  have  thought  of  him  ?  And 
yet,  there  are  multitudes  of  men  standing  around  the  pools  of  salvation; 
who  are  instructed,  and  who  are  full  of  power,  and  self-helping  power, 
and  yet  no  step  do  they  take.  They  are  waiting  for  some  one  to  take 
them  up  and  cany  them. 

My  Christian  brethren,  this  is  not  right  or  manly.  This  is  not  in  the 
spirit  of  religion.  Religion  is  designed  to  make  you,  having  eyes,  to 
employ  them ;  and  having  ears,  to  employ  them ;  and  having  a  rea- 
son, to  employ  that;  and  having  a  moral  sense,  to  develop  that;  and 


264  INDIVIDUAL  RESPONSIBILITY, 

having  a  power  of  choice,  to  enter  upon  the  noblest  choice  and  the 
highest  career.  And  do  it  because  this  is  the  way  that  God  meant  we 
should  be  the  most  manly,  and  develop  the  most  perfectly,  and  be  most 
worthy  of  him.  And  when  we  see  him  as  he  is,  we  shall  hear  the 
welcome  that  will  greet  our  emancipation  into  ever-abiding  manhood 
in  the  heavenly  land. 


INDIVIDUAL  RESPONSIBILITY. 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

We  adore  thee,  Almighty  God.  Thou  hast  made  the  heaven  and  the 
earth ;,  thou  hast  created  man ;  thou  hast  given  him  laws  and  ordinances, 
and  established  government;  and  through  this  government  thou  hast  still 
led  the  race  as  a  flock.  We  rejoice  that  thy  benignity  and  thy  patience  are 
over  all  this  world.  Slowly  as  man  has  toiled  toward  knowledge,  and  little 
as  he  has  found ;  much  as  he  has  degraded  himself ;  strong  as  hav«  been  the 
passions  that  have  borne  sway ;  feeble  as  have  been  the  impulses  toward 
good,  thou,  O  God!  hast  been  unwearied.  Thou  hast  not  cast  aside  thy 
work ;  but  with  infinite  patience  and  gentleness  thou  hast  still  educed  good 
from  evil,  and  by  long-suffering  saved  the  race.  And  we  believe  that  thou 
wilt  yet,  in  the  day  to  come,  brighter  and  clearer  than  any  that  have  yet 
dawned,  bring  forth  perfect  holiness ;  and  that  the  earth  shall  see  thy  salva- 
tion. For  that  blessed  day  of  prediction  we  long.  We  look  wearily  for  ita 
signs,  and  behold  them  not ;  and  yet  we  believe  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  as  a  leaven ;  and  that  it  works  in  the  hearts  of  men ;  and  that  thou  art 
bringing  to  pass  the  counsels  of  thy  will,  though  by  ways  which  we  discern 
not.  And  we  rejoice  that  we  are  permitted  to  be  laborers  together  with 
God  in  our  individual  selves ;  in  our  households ;  in  our  neighborhoods ;  in 
the  nation  where  we  dwell.  We  thank  thee  for  all  the  mercies  which  thou 
hast  vouchsafed  to  us  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  ;  for  our  hope  of  for- 
giveness ;  for  that  faith  which  has  been  breathed  into  our  hearts ;  and  for 
all  that  expectation  of  immortality  which  cheers  the  dreary  days  of  this 
mortal  life.  We  thank  thee  for  all  the  blessedness  which  we  have  had  in 
times  of  sorrow ;  for  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  for  the  quicken- 
ing influence  of  thy  Spirit  by  which  we  have  discerned  the  truth ;  by  which 
we  have  been  fortified  in  the  hour  of  temptation ;  by  which  our  hearts  have 
been  encouraged  when  fainting  and  failing.  We  rejoice  in  our  personal 
hope  and  in  our  personal  expectation.  And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  join 
with  us,  in  this  experience,  all  our  children,  and  all  others  whom  we  love. 
And  grant  that  the  work  of  the  Gospel  may  go  from  heart  to  heart  in  this 
congregation ;  and  that  there  may  be  none  left  out ;  none  who  shall  not 
know  experimentally  the  love  of  Jesus,  and  who  shall  not  have  felt  the 
power  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  who  shall  not  understand  something  of 
that  life  of  the  Spirith-the  soul's  higher  life— by  which  they  shall  walk  with 
God,  and,  though  yet  on  the  earth,  hold  communion  with  heaven. 

We  pray  for  any  that  are  degraded;  for  any  that  are  despondent;  for 
any  that  are  in  affiiction  in  over-measuie;  for  any  that  are  ridden  by  anxi- 
ety, and  that  are  filled  with  fears.  Will  the  Lord  be  gracious  unto  them, 
and  spread  abroad  Thine  hands  over  them,  and  say.  Peace  be  unto  you. 

We  pray  for  all  that  are  in  perplexity ;  that  know  not  the  way  of  duty. 
May  they  be  able  to  discern  it,  and  find  out  the  right  way  to  walk  therein, 
and  to  gain  strength  by  their  intuition. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  light  to  shine  upon  all  those  who  are 
teaching  others.  Help  our  Sabbath-schools  and  Bible-classes,  both  all  that 
teach  in  them,  and  all  that  are  tawght.  We  pray  that  their  souls  may  bd 
knit  together  in  the  bonds  of  holy  love. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  be  with  all  those  who  go  forth  to  seek  the  outcast 
and  the  neglected,  and  to  bear  the  Gospel  to  unwonted  places,  where  no 
Sabbath  is,  and  where  no  teachers  are.  Will  the  Lord  fill  their  hearts  with 
a  holy  fear;  and  may  they  never  be  woary  of  their  labors  of  love.  We 
beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  prepare  thy  servants  for  all  the  events  of  thy 
providence — for  sickness ;  for  life ;  for  burdens  ;  for  prosperity  ;  for  disap- 
pointments; for  grievous  troubles.     Grant  that  we  may  walk  expecting 


^266  INDIVIDUAL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

evermore  thy  strength  in  thy  presence  which  shall  be  to  us,  in  the  flame  or 
in  the  flood  alike,  strength,  and  succor,  and  release. 

Bless,  we  pray  thee,  the  churches  that  are  gathered  of  every  name  this 
day.  May  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  be  in  the  midst  of  them  all.  And  we  pray 
for  thy  servants  that  preach,  that  they  may  be  made  to  discern  the  truth, 
and  have  fervor  given  them  that  the  truth  may  be  as  good  seed  sown  in 
good  soil.  We  pray  for  the  day  when  there  shall  be  no  more  divisions; 
■when  each  man  shall  be  content  to  let  each  worship  God  according  to  the 
dictates  of  his  conscience ;  and  when  men  shall  love  those  that  are  apart 
from  them. 

Grant  that  the  spirit  of  undying  love  may  spread,  and  that  sympathy 
may  take  the  place  of  persecution,  and  that  thy  name  may  be  honored  in  all 
the  forms  iu  which  men  are  seeking-^;©  do  thy  will.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt 
bless  the  nations  of  the  earth,  and  bring  in  that  day  so  long  waiting  and  so 
long  needed,  of  final  and  universal  peace,  when  men  shall  no  longer  wage 
war,  nor  provoke  the  causes  of  it ;  and  when  love  shall  supersede  anger  and 
cruelty,  and  mercy  shall  fill  the  earth. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise,  Father,  Son  and  Spirit,  evermore. 
Avicn, 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMOK 


Our  Father,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  let  the  truth  sink  down 
into  our  hearts,  and  abide  there.  May  we  never  be  tlie  believers  of  cun- 
ningly devised  fables.  May  we  be  filled  with  the  spirit  of  manliness.  May 
■we  be  gentle.  May  we  be  fair-minded.  May  we  be  amiable — not  arrogant  nor 
vain.  May  we  desire  to  know  what  is  truth.  Grant  that  we  may  desire  our 
true  selves  more  than  everything  else — more  than  houses  or  lands ;  more  than 
honor ;  more  than  fame ;  more  than  all  pleasures.  May  we  desire  to  be  built 
up  in  the  essential  elements  of  a  true  and  Christian  manhood,  that  we  may 
be  presented  before  the  throne  not  unworthy  of  the  divine  Eye,  O  , eternal 
Father!  when  we  shall  be  perfected  without  spot  or  blemish,  or  any  such 
thing. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant,  then,  thy  Spirit,  which  coercea 
none,  but  helps  all,  and  which  sweetly  shines  as  the  sun.  And  like  the  sun, 
may  it  bring  forth  all  pleasant  plants  of  righteousness  in  the  garden  of  the 
Lord. 

Revive  thy  vrork  in  the  hearts  of  all  those  that  already  have  known  thee, 
but  have  forgotten  thee ;  and  of  those  that  follow  thee  but  afar  off ;  and  of 
those  that  are  cumbered  with  care;  and  of  those  that  are  cankered  with  pas- 
sion; and  of  those  that  are  bewildered  and  lost  in  the  maze  of  the  world.  Oh ! 
that  all  might  hear  thee  calling  to  them,  and  rise  up,  and  in  their  plenary 
power  ;»ecept  thy  service,  and  love  thee,  and  rejoice  in  the  glorious  hope  of 
immortality. 

And  to  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  evermore. 
Amen, 


XVI. 

The  Era  of  Joy. 


INVOCATION. 

Be  merciful  unto  us,  thou  that  art  ascended  upon  high.  Above  care, 
above  sorrow,  and  above  temptation  thou  art.  And  yet  thy  heart  is  still 
with  those  that  need  divine  succor ;  and  all  the  way  of  God  toward  the  world 
shall  be  a  way  of  mercy ;  for  in  thee  is  our  hope,  and  our  salvation.  And 
now,  upon  this  morning  of  so  many  recollections  and  associations,  grant 
that  we  may  have  the  gift  of  thine  own  power  and  presence,  working 
mightily  in  us  to  subdue  whatever  is  wrong,  to  inspire  in  us  whatever  is  ac- 
ceptable with  thee.  Bless  the  service  of  instruction  and  the  service  and 
fellowship  of  sacred  song,  and  all  our  attempts  at  communion,  silently  or 
uttered.  Be  with  us  in  the  sanctuary;  and  may  the  very  spirit  of  the  house 
of  the  Lord  be  m  our  hearts  through  all  the  hours  of  the  day,  so  that  this 
may  be  blessed  above  all  days  to  our  experience.  We  ask  it  m  Christ's  name. 
Amen. 

16 


i 


THE  ERA  OE  JOY. 


**  And  the  angels  said  unto  them,  Fear  not ;  for  behold,  I  bring  you  good 
tidings  of  great  joy,  whicli  shall  be  to  all  people.  For  unto  you  is  born  this 
day,  in  the  city  of  Dav'id,  a  Saviour,  which  is  Christ  the  Lord."— Luke  ii., 
10.  IL 


'  This  is  the  only  day  of  the  year  consecrated  purely  to  joy.  We 
care  not  what  the  ecclesiastical  origin  of  the  Christinas  Day  was,  nor 
what  notions  have  environed  it  in  other  times.  In  itself  it  is  the  dry 
foi-  the  celebration  of  joy.  There  are  many  days  celebrated  in  al' 
nations  to  commemorate  important  events  in  the  history  of  thoau 
nations.  There  are  days  of  thanksgiving  to  God,  or  of  joyfulness,  as 
the  expression  of  gratitude  for  the  history  of  single  years,  or  for  grcn*- 
deliverances,  or  for  eminent  blessings  conferred.  But  Chiistians  all 
the  world  over,  on  this  day,  whatever  language  they  speak,  under 
what  government  soever  they  live,  join  to  celebrate  it  as  the  day  of 
joy.  It  does  not  yet  appeal  to  the  whole  population  of  the  globe  ;  but 
the  time  shall  come  when  every  tribe,  and  tongue,  and  nation,  and 
people,  in  every  island,  and  on  every  continent,  shall  join  together  to 
celebrate  this  one  columnar  day  of  joy.  All  the  world  eastward  has 
been,  and  is  still,  aroused ;  and  all  the  world  westward  as  the  progress 
of  the  sun  goes  on,  is  being  aroused  to  the  celebi-ation  of  this  day. 
Whatever  men  believe  respecting  Christ,  when  they  analyze  their 
thought  and  feeling  they  agree  that  this  advent  is  to  be  hailed  with 
joy.  Whether  he  be  angelic,  or  divine,  or  very  God,  or  only  eminent 
man,  his  coming  is  universally  admitted  to  have  been  a  fact  of  supreme 
importance  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

The  angel  proclaimed  joy  to  the  shepherds,  and  declared  to  them 
that  it  should  be  a  joy  to  all  people.  The  priest  in  the  temple  pre- 
dicted joy  to  the  wondering  parents ;  and  Jesus  iiimself,  among  his 
earliest  words,  represented  himself  as  the  one  predicted  to  I'ight  the 
wrong,  to  expel  cruelty  and  suffering,  and  to  bring  light,  liberty,  and 
peace  to  thp  woi'ld. 

This  day,  therefore,  celebrates  an  era  of  joy  ;  and  the  whole  Chris- 
tian world  to-day  makes  itself  happy — or  should.    One  day  there  is  of 

SuvDAY  Morning,  Dec.  25,  1870.  Lesson  :  Luke  li.  1-20.  Hymns  (PJymouth  CoUection) 
tfos.  215.  212.  200. 


268  THE  ERA  OF  JOT. 

the  three  hundred  and  sixty-five,  set  apart,  not  only  for  joy  fulness,  but 
to  remind  the  world  that  the  true  religion  bears  joy  as  its  ripest  fruit. 

It  will  then  be  some  benefit,  I  hope,  if  I  take  the  occasion  of  this 
day  to  r})eak  upon  the  joy-producin(j power  of  Christianity. 

Continuous  joy  in  any  faculty  indicates  the  highest  condition  of 
liealtli  in  that  faculty;  and  continuous  joy  in  every  part  of  the  mind 
will  be  the  sign,  when  it  shall  take  place,  of  perfection  in  that  mind. 
For  although,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  regard  it,  pleasure  or  joy  is  not 
the  sign  of  goodness,  yet  in  the  larger  analysis,  and  in  a  higher  way 
of  looking  at  it,  it  may  be  said  that  the  power  of  continuous  joy  in  any 
faculty  is  the  sign  of  perfect  health  in  that  faculty ;  and  that  the 
power  of  continuous  joy  in  all  the  soul  is  the  evidence  that  the  soul 
itself  is  in  a  state  of  perfectness,  and  that  joy  is  the  test.  Not  low 
measures,  not  occasional  joys,  not  collateral  and  incidental  flushes  of 
this  experience,  but  the  power  of  the  man's  nature  to  work  it  out  stead- 
fastly, is  the  sign  and  token  of  perfectness  in  part  and  in  whole.  It  is 
therefore  the  final  test  of  excellence.  The  capacity  of  fullness  is  the 
ultimate  end  of  being :  not  the  aim  of  the  present,  which  is  a  develop- 
ing period  ;  but  the  ultimate  end. 

The  possibility  of  joy  continually  and  in  the  whole  soul  is  con- 
ditioned, however,  upon  a  state  of  perfect  development  and  training 
which  will  be  intermediate,  and  whose  experience  will  not  be  like  the 
experience  of  the  final  and  ripe  state.  We  have  now  only  the 
language  of  education — an  education  in  which  there  is  much  incidental 
sutlei-ing :  yet  all  suffering  is  but  the  chisel's  edge  shaping  an  uncouth 
block  to  the  forms  of  beauty  and  to  the  proportions  of  grace. 

Let  us  ask,  then,  first.  What  is  Christianity  itself,  that  is  said  to 
have  this  power  of  producing  joy,  and  whose  legitimate  and  charac- 
teiistic  fruit  is  joy?  Historically  and  narrowly  considered,  Chris- 
tianity is  the  system  made  up  by  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ. 
That  merely  tells  us,  however,  where  the  name  came  from,  and  what 
in  general  are  the  instruments.  In  a  lai-gcr  statement,  Christianity 
is  that  system  of  influence,  which  was  designed  of  God,  and  which  is 
destined  to  educate  the  whole  human  race  to  perfect  manhood.  It  is 
that  whole  system  of  influences  of  every  kind  whatsoever",  whether 
evolved  heretofore,  or  now  developing,  or  yet  to  be  unfolded,  by  which 
God  designs  to  perfect  the  individual  and  the  race  into  manhood.  It 
is  the  divine  education  of  the  race  to  its  full  capacity. 

This  is  Christianity.  It  was  indicated  by  Christ,  who  was  the 
supremest  Teacher  in  this  great  system.  It  takes  its  name  worthily 
fi'om  him.  But  all  of  Christianity  was  not  taught  by  Christ.  Its  seed 
formp,  its  germs,  were  all  in  Him  ;  but  the  unfolding,  as  He  himself  de^ 
clared,  belonged  to  a  later  period. 

"  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  to  a  grain  of  mustard-seed." 


THE  ERA  OF  JOT.  £G9 

He  Raltl  to  his  disciples, 
"  I  have  many  things  to  say  unto  you  ;  but  ye  cannot  bear  thom  no  V7." 
There  was  a  vast  amount  of  truth  that  lay  coiled  and  tulJtd  in  Iho 
mind  of  Jesus  that  was  not  spoken. 

Not,  then,  merely  the  historical  facts  of  the  Gospel,  but  all 
the  vast  facts  of  creation  when  they  shall  have  grown  and  been  un- 
folded through  time;  the  whole  scheme,  for  instance,  of  the  natural 
globe,  or  the  material  world  ;  the  whole  evohUiou  of  divine  providence 
in  human  society ;  the  whole  work  of  civilization  as  it  shall  take  place 
under  the  divine  guidance — all  of  this  belongs  to  Christianity. 

The  definition  of  Christianity  is  found,  not  in  the  instruments, 
but  in  the  thing  for  which  the  instruments  are  employed.  The 
perfect  manhood  of  the  race  in  Christ  Jesus — that  is  Christianity. 
Christianity  is  not  to  be  sought  for  in  its  doctrines,  nor  in  its  ordinances, 
nor  in  its  institutions,  by  which  it  secures  certain  things.  It  is  to  be 
sought  for  in  the  things  which  these  doctrines,  ordinances,  and  institu- 
tions secure,  or  Avork  out.  That  is  the  final  condition  of  the  nature  of 
man  himself.  Just  as  fast  as  the  ages  find  out  then  any  truths  or  any 
processes  which,  applied  to  man,  lift  him  toward  God,  all  these  truths 
newly  developed,  and  all  these  processes  newly  evolved  fall  into 
the  ranks  and  become  a  part  of  Christianity.  For  Christianity  is  the 
final  sum  of  all  influences  that  tend  to  produce  a  perfect  manhood  in  the 
race. 

The  design  of  Christianity  was  announced  by  Christ ;  and  great 
elementary  tendencies  were  established  or  developed  ;  but  it  was  not 
pretended,  it  was  not  taught,  it  was  not  even  intimated,  that  tlie  whole 
of  Christianity  was  made  known  at  that  time.  The  whole  creation  is 
God's,  and  therefore  Christ's.  The  world  was  made  by  him,  "and 
without  him  was  not  anything  made  that  was  made."  And  all  things 
w6re  made,  in  the  whole  globe,  and  in  all  its  history,  to  converge,  ai;d 
through  the  ages  in  long  sequences  to  work  out  that  which  after  all  is 
the  sum  and  substance  and  heart  of  Christianity — the  purification,  the 
elevation,  and  the  sanctification  of  the  manhood  of  the  world.  And  all 
that  goes  toward  the  development  of  true  manhood,  and  the  elevation 
of  the  race,  whether  we  have  just  learned  it,  or  whether  it  was  known  in 
the  apostolic  day,  beloiigs  to  Christianity.  Men  go  back  to  the  apostlt  s, 
as  if  things  were  perfect  in  proportion  as  they  go  back.  You  might  ju:^t 
as  well  go  back  to  acorns  for  timber  for  ships,  on  the  supposition  that 
the  further  you  go  back  toward  the  seed  the  nearer  you  come  to  tim- 
ber. Christianity  was  never  so  imperfect  as  when  Christ  himself  lived  ; 
and  the  Christianity  of  the  world  was  never  so  narrow  as  when  the 
apostles  handled  it.  The  perfection  of  Christianity  is  not  in  its  seed- 
form,  but  in  its  blossoms  and  in  its  fruit;  and  they  come  with  ilio  gen- 
erations hereafter,  when  not  single  cues,  nor  sections,  nor  handfuls, 


270  THE  ERA   OF  JOY. 

nor  first-fruits  are  being  developed  by  the  power  of  these  great  agen- 
cies, but  when  nations  shall  be  born  in  a  day,  and  when  races  shall  be 
knit  togctlier,  and  all  of  them  shall  be  lifted  up  by  the  final  form  of 
divine  influence  into  perfect  manhood.  And  it  is  the  realization  of  this 
great  conception  of  a  world's  manhood  that  is  the  aim  of  Christianity  ; 
and  this  is  that  which  it  is  Avorking  towaKd,  and  with  a  larger  and 
larger  volume  of  truth  and  of  influence,  through  every  successive  great 
period  of  time. 

The  passage  which  I  have  often  quoted,  and  which  I  shall  never 
quote  enough,  in  Philippians,  embraces  the  same  idea: 
*'  Whatsoever  things  are  true." 

He  has  been  telling  a  great  many  things  that  are  true,  and  unfold- 
ing them ;  and  he  then  says,  "But  not  these  alone — whatever  ih'mg^ 
are  true.  When  men  have  thought;  when  new  philosophies  have 
arisen ;  when  controversies  have  cleared  the  chaif  from  the  wheat ;  when, 
after  ten  thousand  years  of  unfolding  natu.re  and  the  development  of 
man  in  civil  society,  and  all  probings  and  experiments,  shall  have 
brought  around  a  glorious  circle  of  truth,  so  that  there  shall  be  a  thou- 
sand stars  where  once  there  was  but  one  in  the  horizon,  whatsoever  is 
true — all  that  belongs  to  Christianity."  That  is  the  meaning  of  the 
whole  passage : 

""Whatsoever  things  are  true,  whatsoever  things  are  honest,  whatsoever 
things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are  pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely, 
whatsoever  things  are  of  good  report,  if  there  be  any  virtue  and  if  there  be 
any  praise,  think  on  these  things," 

—  ponder,  accept,  these  things.  In  the  long  flight  of  years,  as  God 
shall,  on  the  one  and  on  the  other  side,  ripen  new  fruits,  develop  new 
intelligences,  bring  forth  sweeter  harmonies  of  social  life,  lift  up  the 
standard  more  and  more,  men  are  not  to  stand  carping  and  saying, 
"  Your  Christianity  did  well  enough  for  the  old  time ;  but  it  is  otit- 
grown.  There  are  better  things  now  than  the  old  Christianity  ever 
brought  into  the  world."  Paul  says,  "  Christianity  does  not  mean  just 
the  things  that  I  have  attained.  It  is  not  limited  to  just  the  things 
that  I  am  telling  you.  It  includes  the  ever-increasing  evolution  by 
which  God  means  to  complete  the  developntent  of  the  race,  on  the 
whole  globe,  in  all  periods  of  time.  And  whatever  is  true  is  of  Christ ; 
and  whatever  is  just,  or  ever  shall  be  ;  and  whatever  is  pure,  or  ever 
shall  be ;  and  whatever  is  beautiful,  or  of  good-report  among  men — be 
in  a  mood,  if  you  have  any  virtue  or  any  sensibility,  to  accept  that  as 
a  part  of  your  fealty  to  Christ,  and  of  your  faith  in  God."  That  was  the 
apostle's  creed ;  and  that  is  the  creed  which  goes  on  forever  augment- 
ing, never  abandoning  the  old,  knitting  the  future  to  the  past,  and 
still  making  new  discoveries — not  discoveries  oi  new  truths,  but  of 
n'ew  blossoms  on  old  branches. 


THM  ERA  Oi'  JOY,  271 

Now  it  cnn  be  made  intelligible  how  the  joy  which  is  the  aim  oi  | 
Christiauity  may  be  really  that  which  was  predicted  by  the  angels  to 
all  people  ;  and  how  Christianity  itself  is  a  state  designed  to  produce 
joy ;  and  yet,  how  sorrow,  which  is  the  instrument  largely  employed 
in  producing  it,  may  still  fill  so  large  a  place  as  it  has  filled  in  the  his- 
toi-y  of  the  world.  For  when  men  say  that  Christianity  tends  to  pro^ 
duce  joy,  we  are  instantly  pointed  to  the  wretched  condition  of  things 
which  exists;  and  men  say,  "Two  thousand  years!  and  where  is  your 
joyfulness  f  Men  say,  "  Christianity  produce  joy  ?  Have  there  ever 
been  such  bloody  wars  as  Christianity  has  produced?  Have  there  ever 
been  such  quarreling  and  dissensions  as  Christianity  has  produced  ? 
Where  is  your  joy  ?  Besides,"  they  say,  "though  these  flighty  angels 
may  have  said  something  about  joy,  what  did  the  Master  himself  say  ? 
He  said,  '  Take  up  your  cross  and  follow  me.'  He  said,  'In  this  Avorld 
ye  shall  suffer  tribulation.'  What  saith  the  Scripture  ?  It  says  '  They 
that  will  live  godly  shall  suffer  persecution.' "  And  therefore  it  strikes 
the  sad  ear  of  those  that  are  despondent,  or  of  those  that  look  only  on 
one  side  of  this  question,  very  strangely,  when  I  declare  that  it  is  the 
aim  of  Christianity  to  produce  joy ;  when  I  say  that  Christianity  is  the 
joy-producing  state  of  the  universe. 

But  I  do  not  say  that  it  instantly  produces  joy.  I  do  not  say  that 
it  produces  joy  always.  I  do  not  say  that  it  is  not  subject  to  the  per 
versions  which  belong  to  the  whole  scheme  of  this  life.  I  merely  say 
that  it  is  attempting  to  work  in  man  such  a  growth  and  such  a  devel- 
opment as  shall  bring  him  into  the  capacity  and  into  the  condition  in 
which  joy  shall  be  the  natural  end  of  each  faculty,  and  of  the  whole  of 
the  faculties.  While  he  is  being  educated  into  it  I  concede  that  there 
is  much  suffering :  but  it  is  not  suffering  for  the  sake  of  suffering.  It  is 
not  aimless,  void  and  useless  suffering.  It  is  a  suffering  which  chas- 
tises disobedience  into  obedience ;  which  transforms  faults  into  virtues ; 
which  discharges  the  dross,  and  brings  out  the  pure  gold.  That  is  the 
divine  idea  of  suffering  in  the  world. 

The  woman  of  the  house  says,  "  I  will  have  neatness  in  this  house- 
hold." And  behold  her  on  her  knees  on  the  floor  (I  am  speaking  ot 
the  old-fashioned  times) ;  and  behold  the  floor  all  covered  with  dirt  and 
soap  and  water ;  and  behold  the  man  that  wanted  neatness  wading  for 
his  life,  as  it  were,  through  the  flood  of  suds  and  filth.  And  yet, 
through  dirt  she  does  get  neatness.  First  comes  the  scrubbing ;  and 
after  the  scrubbing  comes  the  dry  and  cleanly  floor.  And  so  it  is  with 
all  processes  of  cleansing  or  polishing.  Brilliance  is  what  is  wanted 
on  the  shield.  And  so  it  is  burnished.  But  the  substances  by  which 
that  brilliance  is  brought  out  are  blackening  and  disfir'-urin"-. 

The  workman's  period  is  not  always  the  enjoying  period.     It  ia 


272  THE  EEA  OF  JOT. 

after  the  workman  has  let  go  that  the  quality  of  joy  is  made  lo  appear. 

We  all  believe  that  intelligence  is  more  pleasurable  than  ignorance ; 
/  and  yet,  the  process  of  getting  intelligence  is  not  always  so  very  pleas- 
'  ant.  The  grammars  and  the  dictionaries  have  a  sad  story  to  tell  when 
they  reveal  their  secrets ;  and  the  process  of  being  licked  into  wisdom 
from  the  condition  of  blockheadism  is  not  a  very  agreeable  process. 
Dark  and  stormy  and  toilsome  is  the  I'oad  through  which  one  must 
pass  before  he  reaches  the  goal  of  intelligence. 

Who  doubts  that  the  physician's  end  is  health.     That  is  what  he 
\      is  seeking ;  and  who  doubts  that  he  seeks  it  by  very  loathsome  and 
nauseous  passages  and  processes  ?     Medicine,  though  its  immediate  re- 
sult is  painful,  has  for  its  design  perfect  enjoyment. 

Everything  in  this  world  is  born  by  labor-throes ;  and  afterward 
every  successive  stage  of  development  in  this  world  is  born  by  labor- 
throes.  And  pain  is  God's  midwife,  that  helps  some  viitue  into  exist- 
ence, or  some  noble  trait  into  a  true  living.  Therefore,  if  pain  and 
suiFeiing  have  not  been  understood,  if  their  reign  has  been  pro- 
longed, if  they  tend  to  wear  out  strength  and  activity,  it  is  because 
they  have  not  been  studied  scientifically  in  the  light  of  the  word  of 
God  ;  it  is  because  they  have  been  misused,  or  greatly  abused.  I  be. 
lieve  that  throughout  God's  universal  realm  pain  is  the  minister  of 
mercy,  and  that  the  truth  Avliich  is  declared  in  Hebrews  is  a  truth  as 
1   universal  as  the  divine  government,  where  it  is  said, 

"J  "No  chastening  for  the  present  seemeth  to  be  joyous,  but  grievous;  never- 
theless, afterward  ityieldeth  the  peaceable  fruit  of  righteousness  unto  them 
which  are  exercised  thereby" — 

in  them  that  are  disciplined  ;  in  those  that  know  how  to  use  it.  That 
is  the  tendency  of  suffering.  That  is  its  function.  Never  for  the 
present  is  chastisement  joyous  •  it  is  grievous ;  but  afterward  you  get 
the  end,  the  object  of  it. 

Now,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  progress  of  Christianity  in  this 
world  has  been  very  much  checked,  that  its  development  has  been  very 
much  restricted,  by  the  ignorance  of  men.  But  the  mei-e  allegation 
that  the  existence  in  this  life  of  Christianity  lias  been  for  the  produc- 
tion of  suifering  and  sorrow,  is  no  argument  against  the  fact  that 
Christianity  is  a  joy-producing  power  in  the  world,  that  it  is  the  instru- 
ment of  joy,  and  that  it  will  complete  and  accomplish  its  end. 

If  it  be  said,  therefore,  in  Scripture,  "  Take  up  thy  cross  and  follow 
me,"  it  is  because  no  man  can  follow  Christ — that  is,  rise  into  the 
higher  states  of  his  own  being — except  by  denying  the  lower  ones. 
And  the  cross  is  always  laid  on  the  animal,  and  not  on  the  spiritual. 
No  man  takes  his  cross  up  on  his  conscience ;  no  man  takes  his  cross 
up  on  his  faith  or  hope ;  no  man  puts  his  cross  on  love.  It  is  on  pride; 
it  is  on  selfishness;  it  is  on  the  lower  force-giving  faculties  or  animal 


THE  BRA,  OF  JOT.  273 

appetites,  that  the  cross  is  put,  in  order  that  the  higher  faculties  may 
predominate,  and  the  lower  ones  serve.     For  if  we  talce  the  cross  of 
Christ,  taking  it,  we  follow  hiiu  with  greater  joy  than  it  would  be  pos 
sible  for  us  to  attain  if  we  did  not  take  it. 
••In  the  world  ye  shall  have  tribulation." 

Yes,  but  it  is  that  we  may  have  greater  joy  that  we  suffer  tribula- 
tion. Hence,  the  difference  between  joy  proclaimed  and  joy  realized 
in  the  Avorld,  is  accounted  for  simply  because  the  world  is  on  the  way 
toward  a  perfect  joy.  The  day  has  not  yet  dawned  for  the  complete 
accomplishment  of  it,  because  the  race  has  not  been  developed  by  suf- 
fering up  to  that  point  in  which  joy  is  possible.  There  have  been  many 
religions  which  have  made  men  much  more  joyful  than  Christianity 
has ;  but  they  played  upon  the  nature  just  as  it  was,  and  never  sought 
to  change  it.  The  religion  of  the  Greeks  was  a  gay  and  festive  relig- 
ion. They  wreathed  themselves  with  flowers  ;  they  anointed  them- 
selves with  sweet  perfumes ;  they  surrounded  their  temples  with  every 
attraction;  they  invoked  every  pleasure  that  they  could  think  of;  they 
sought  to  make  the  hour  of  their  worship  a  beautiful  and  charmino- 
hour.  They  sought  joy  without  seeking  manhood.  Theirs  was  a  re- 
ligion which  took  men  just  where  they  were,  and  left  them  where  they 
were,  and  wrung  out  of  them  all  the  joy  that  there  was  in  them  at  that 
point  of  development — and  that  was  all. 

But  Christianity  takes  men,  and  says,  '*  Ye  are  capable  of  mightier 
things  than  these,"  and  so  begins  to  open  up  the  nature,  to  accord  tlie 
nature,  to  discipline  the  natui'e,  and  make  manhood  vaster  with  the 
volume  of  joy  by  and  by  wrung  out  of  their  faculties — so  vast  that 
it  shall  transcend  immeasurably  that  which  was  possible  in  the  begin- 
ning, or  at  the  earlier  stages. 

It  is  a  great  comfort  to  me,  that  have  looked  with  so  much  sym- 
pathy upon  the  whole  long  requiem  of  time  past,  and  upon  the  groan- 
ing and  travailing  in  pain  until  now  that  is  in  the  world,  to  believe,  as 
I  do  heartily  believe,  that  the  future  of  Christianity  is  to  be  far  brio-hter, 
and  that  the  day  of  struggle  is  comparatively  past. 

Do  you  remember  that  Christmas  day  is  the  first  day  in  the  year 
in  which  the  days  begin  to  lengthen?  On  the  twenty -first,  the  twen- 
ty-second, the  twenty-third  and  the  twent3^-fourth  of  December  they 
are  substantially  at  a  stand  still ;  but  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  December, 
the  hand  of  the  poetic  year  cuts  one  lock  from  the  head  of  darkness 
and  hangs  it  like  a  star  on  the  forehead  of  the  day ;  and  to-day  is  a  min- 
ute longer  than  yesterday.  And  the  sun  will  not  go  back  now.  It 
has  set  its  face  toward  the  summer  ;  and  though  there  are  i-oin<i-  to  be 
great  storms  in  January  ;  though  vast  shrouds  of  snow  will  cover  the 
gi-ound,  yet  you  know  and  I  know  that  the  sun  has  gone  to  its  furthest 


274  THE  EEA   OF  JOT. 

limit,  and  has  begun  to  turn  bade  ;  and  that  just  as  sure  as  nature  is 
constant  in  her  career,  that  sun  is  retracing  his  steps  witli  summer  in 
his  bosom,  and  that  there  are  fruits,  and  there  are  flowers,  and  lliere 
is  a  whole  realm  of  joy,  coming.  You  have  no  doubt  of  this  in  the 
natural  world. 

And  I  say  that  though  the  days  of  the  world's  winter  are  not  over, 
yet  I  believe  that  the  Sun  of  righteousness  has  gone  as  far  away  as  it 
ever  will,  and  has  turned,  and  is  coming  back ;  and  that  there  is  to  be 
a  future  summer  of  joy  and  rejoicing  in  things  spiritual  as  well  as  in 
things  temporal. 

But  while  this  grand  education  is  evolving,  we  must  not  think  that 
joy  is  absent  wholly ;  and  we  must  not  pass  by  too  generically  and 
summarily  what  has  actually  been  gained  by  Christianity  in  the  pro- 
duction of  joy  in  this  world.  It  has  not  been  idle.  "We  are  apt  to  re- 
member the  dark  days,  and  to  forget  the  bright  ones.  There  has  been 
a  long  line  of  joyful  witnesses  in  the  world.  First  was  Christ  himself, 
Avho  is  not  misinterpreted  in  any  other  point  more,  I  think,  than  in  the 
supposition  that  his  life  was  one  of  sorrow.  There  can  be  no  question 
that  there  were  moods  of  profound  sorrow  in  the  life  of  Christ,  and  that 
toward  the  last  month  of  his  life  he  was  in  a  travail  of  sp)irit.  And  that 
he  suffered  at  the  end  of  it,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  But  the  earliest 
period  of  Christ's  life  I  suppose  to  have  been  a  transcendently  joyful 
one.  I  believe  that  as  a  child,  and  as  a  young  man,  in  his  father's  family, 
and  under  the  nourishing  care  of  his  mother,  there  is  no  hint  or  sign 
or  token  that  his  life  was  not  tranquil  and  sweet  and  pleasant  to  him. 
And  there  is  unequivocal  evidence  that  after  he  came  into  his  ministry, 
and  during  the  first  years  of  his  ministration,  the  life  that  he  led  was 
peaceful  and  happy.  Either  all  moral  laws  must  be  set  aside,  and  that 
without  any  necessity  or  any  testimony  to  the  contrary,  or  else  a  life 
in  which  one  in  perfect  health,  and  in  the  consciousness  of  perfect 
power,  and  with  the  ability  to  work  miracles  of  mercy,  and  going  from 
day  to  day  in  the  midst  of  crowds  of  untaught  men,  receiving  their  ad- 
miration and  gratitude,  and  still  conferring  blessings,  and  saying,  "  It 
is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive  " — either  all  moral  laws  must 
be  set  aside,  or  else  under  such  circumstances  he  must  have  been  joy- 
ful. AllJudea  was  one  scene  of  wild  uproar  and  ecstasy.  Here  were 
villages  without  a  sick  man  in  them  ;  for  he  had  passed  through  them. 
The  lame  were  made  to  walk ;  the  blind  were  made  to  see ;  the  deaf 
were  made  to  hear ;  the  very  dead  were  brought  to  life  ;  and  house- 
holds were  re-illuminated  that  had  sat  in  darkness  and  ia  the  shadow  of 
death.  And  from  day  to  day  there  could  be  no  place  large  enough  to 
contain  the  immense  throngs  that  came  around  about  this  divine  Per- 
son.    And  he  says,  "  It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive.  "     See 


THE  ERA  OF  JOT.  275 

the  mother  going  ecstatic  from  him!  Is  it  more  blessed  to  give  than 
to  receive  ?  How  happy  he  was  then  !  See  thejepers  going  away  from 
him  rejoicing  and  chanting  God's  goodness!  But  lie  was  happier  than 
the  lepers.  He  enjoyed  more  than  the  blind  did  that  he  made  to  see ; 
and  more  than  the  deaf  did  that  he  made  to  hear  ;  and  more  than  the 
dumb  did  that  he  made  to  speak ;  and  more  than  separated  friends  did 
who  received  from  the  gulf  of  death  to  their  arms,  by  the  divine  pow- 
er, their  own  again. 

The  mother  at  Nain  whose  son  came  back  from  death  when  Christ 
touched  his  bier — who  can  measure  the  hours  of  ecstasy,  who  can  meas- 
ure the  days  of  joy,  which  she  experienced  at  home,  after  that  event? 
But  he  was  happier  than  she.  Tell  me  that  Christ  was  unhappy  !  He 
was  the  most  notable  exemplification  of  joy  that  the  world  has  ever 
had.  I  do  not  believe  that  there  has  ever  been  so  happy  a  man. 
And  he  looked  forward  to  the  coming  time.  He  lived  for  the  future 
joy.     For  it  is  said  of  him, 

'  Who  for  the  joy  that  was  set  before  him,  endured  the  Cross,  despising 
the  shame." 

It  did  not  count  on  him.  And  you  know  that  the  apostles  declared 
themselves  the  offscouring  of  the  world.  They  died  deaths  daily. 
They  were  expatriated.  They  had  no  fixed  home.  They  had  nothino- 
that  men  usually  call  elements  of  happiness.  And  yet,  I  will  defy  you 
to  find  in  literature,  ancient  or  modern,  so  high  a  tone  of  cheerfulness, 
80  healthy  a  spirit,  so  sound  an  one,  as  you  will  find  portrayed  both  in 
the  Gospels,  and  in  the  history  of  the  apostles.  You  cannot  find  one 
morbid  place,  nor  one  that  tends  to  morbidity,  in  them.  The  most 
illustrious  literature  of  the  globe  is  that  of  these  persecuted,  outcast, 
wandering  men — God's  vagabonds.  And  do  you  tell  me  that  joy  had 
no  fruit  where  such  men  were  raised  to  leave  such  a  magnificent  sym- 
phony of  joy  ? 

And  since  the  days  of  the  apostles,  although  there  have  been  mul- 
titudes of  men  nominally  Christians  who  have,  after  all,  been  very  lit- 
tle developed  spiritually,  yet  there  have  been  many  better  natures, 
many  of  the  higher  sort  of  men,  who  have  been  lifted  up  into  that 
sphere  where  joy  abode  with  them.  Peace,  which  is  the  synonvm  for 
the  harmonies  of  joy,  has  never  been  absent  from  the  holy  men  of  this 
world ;  and  there  is  a  long  line  of  witnesses  that  witness  of  things  peace- 
ful and  joyful.  There  is  the  witness  of  the  martyr.  There  is  the  witness 
of  men  that  have  laid  down  their  lives  for  the  fiiith.  But  there  is  yet 
to  be  a  revelation  of  what  Christianity  has  done  for  the  internal  man 
— a  witness  of  perfect  joy,  and  of  perfect  peace.  We  shall  not  know 
it  until  the  other  life,  except  by  snatches,  and  little  insights  here  and 
tlere  in  the  fraginentai-y  lives  of  these  holy  men.     But  still,  the  whole 


276  THE  ERA  OF  JOY. 

range  of  joy  throughout  the  world  has  been  augmented  and  elevated. 
I  think  tliat  the  civilizeij  world  never  was  so  happy  in  ancient  times  as 
it  Is  now — relatively,  I  mean,  compared  with  what  civilization  is 
now  doing.  If  you  go  back  two  thousand  years,  even,  you  will  find 
it  to  be  so.  Men  like  to  praise  old  times.  They  like  to  praise,  for 
instance,  the  good  old  hearty  days  of  England  before  King  Henry 
VIII.  reigned,  when  there  was  simplicity,  and  when  there  was  a  rude 
yeomanry  virtue,  and  when  men  were  gay  and  happy.  I  tell  you 
that,  were  you  to  take  these  men  up,  and  carry  them  back  there,  and  let 
them  sleep  where  men  slept  then,  and  let  them  eat  what  men  ate  then,  and 
let  them  do  what  men  had  to  do  then,  and  take  away  from  them  what  men 
did  not  have  then,  but  do  have  now,  you  would  hear  the  most  piteous 
moaning  and  whining  and  complaining  that  ever  afl3.icted  your  ears.  For 
we  have  grown  in  the  number  of  enjoyments,  m  the  refinements  of  sensi- 
bility, in  the  realization  of  life,  in  all  the  sweet  elements  that  go  to 
constitute  satisfaction  in  life.  No  pen  can  record,  no  tongue  can  tell, 
the  growth  that  has  been  made  in  five  hundred  years.  The  world  is 
steadily  growing.  You  are  to  remember  one  thing,  and  that  is,  that 
one  of  the  signs  of  development  is  the  increase  of  sensibility.  But  the 
increase  of  sensibility  is  also  the  increase  of  the  element  of  suflfering. 
Every  one  that  is  really  lifted  higher  in  the  scale  of  existence  is  in  the 
situation  to  feel  more  acutely  the  remaining  evils.  And  men  are  dis- 
turbed, not  in  proportion  to  the  blessings  which  they  have  or  do  not 
have,  but  in  proportion  to  the  evils  that  yet  remain  uncorrected  and 
unremoved  of  the  lower  or  the  animal  form  of  suifei-ing.  A  condition 
of  things  which  to-day  would  revolutionize  this  nation,  our  forefothers 
considered  so  blessed  that  they  gave  thanks  for  it.  The  days  of  thanks- 
giving of  one  thousand  years  ago,  carried  forward  a  thousand  yeai's, 
would  be  days  of  revolution,  because  it  would  be  considered  so  low  and 
imperfect  a  thanksgiving  that  men  could  not  endure  it  and  would  not 
stand  it — and  that,  too,  in  the  very  process  of  unfolding  and  of  reform- 
ation. So  that  while  we  hear  a  great  deal  of  the  sufferings  of  this 
world,  we  are  not  to  forget  that  the  enjoyment  of  the  race,  its  capacity 
to  enjoy,  the  number  of  faculties  that  do  enjoy,  and  the  higher  elements 
of  those  faculties,  are  actually  increased.  While  the  race  was  an  acid 
race  when  Christ  found  them,  they  are  a  sugar  race,  comparatively 
speaking,  now.  They  secrete  a  hundred  times  as  much  of  the  saccha- 
rine principle  as  they  did. 

When  men  make  wines  of  the  juices  of  different  sorts  of  grapes, 
they  test  them  for  two  elements.  They  test  them  first  for  sugar.  The 
best  wine  is  made  from  those  grapes  which  contain  the  most  sugar. 
They  also  test  them  for  acid.  The  acid-bearing  grapes  produce  the 
poorest  wine  ;  and  their  juices  have  to  be  purified  most 


THE  ERA  OF'  JOT.  277 

Now,  men  are  to  be  tested  in  a  similar  way.     If  you  test  men  of 
antiquity,  you  will  find  that  they  produced  a  vast  amount  of  acid,  and 
but  little  sugar;  but  if  you  test  men  that  have  been  long  under  the  in- 
fluence of  those  things  which  promote  Christian  development,  you  will 
find  that  they  produce  a  great  deal  of  sugar  and  very  little  acid.     So 
that  in  the  mosaic  of  history,  the  wine  produced  from  the  juices  ex- 
pressed from  the  grapes  of  later  generations,  is  far  better  moral  wine 
than  that  produced  from  the  juices  expressed  from  the  grapes  of  anti- 
quity.    What  joys  they  had  in  the  earliest  ages  were  near  the  animal 
line.     The  joys  that  they  had  then  were  very  imperfectly  developed. 
But  our  life  has  gone  up.     As  animals, we  are  far  better  fed  than  they 
were.      As  civilians  we  live  in  a  far  opener  and  freer  and  larger  life. 
As  cultivated  beings,  as  philosophers — in  other  words,  as  men  that 
derive  their  pleasure  not  from  sense,  but  from  sensibility  and  from  the 
moral  sentiments — we  have  a  hundred  avenues  through  which  we  are 
drawing  supplies  where  antiquity  had  one.      And  if  Seneca  had  lived 
in  our  dny  he  would  have  written  amatory  poetry,  instead  of  the  lugu- 
brious maxims  that  he  did  write  in  his  day,  shut  up  in  the  narrow  cell 
of  an  undeveloped  period.      ]\Ien  in  this  day  write  a  poetry  of  love, 
bright  ami  clear,  while  in  the  olden  times  men  wrote  poetry  that  was 
sour,  dark  and  gloomy.      Tlie  whole  world  is  better  ofi',  with  all  its 
discords.     Not  only  is  it  better  off,  but  it  is  getting  still  better  ofi'from 
hundre'ds  of  years  to  hundreds  of  years — croakers  to  the  contrary,  not- 
withstanding. 

Tlie  elevation  of  Christian  households  has  greatly  augmented  the 
actual  happiness  of  the  world,  and  opened  a  horizon  still  more  magnif- 
icent for  the  time  to  come.  The  average  condition  of  the  common 
jieople  of  Christendom  is  far  higher  than  formerly  it  was,  and  is  still 
rising.  So  that  while  we  are  saying  that  Chi'istianity  ultimately  will 
produce  more  joy,  we  must  not  forget  that  it  is  doing  much  by  the 
way.  We  must  remember  that  while  by  sufiering,  by  attrition,  by 
various  things  that  produce  burdens  more  or  less,  Christianity  is  taking 
the  race  up  to  a  higher  joy,  on  the  road  also  are  first  fruits  of  that  joy. 
And  the  world  is  better  oif  to-day  than  it  was  at  any  five  hundred  years 
previous.  The  future  is  growing  brighter  and  brighter.  All  real  gains 
now  make  future  gains. 

It  is  with  moral  elements  as  it  is  with  financial  matters.  The  first 
hundred  dollars  which  a  poor  man  earns,  and  keeps  clear  from  every 
claim,  so  as  to  use  it  for  business,  costs  him  more  labor  than  afterwards 
it  wili  cost  him  to  earn  a  hundred  thousand  dollars.  When  Vanderbilt 
first  ran  a  packet  boat  between  Stuten  Island  and  New  York,  it  cost 
him  more  to  get  twonty-five  dollars  than  now  it  does  to  get  twenty-five 
ruilliv)n,  in  the  way  that  he  gets  his  money.  And  it  is  so  in  moral  things. 


278  THE  ERA   OB'  JOT, 

Early  stages  are  the  Lard  ones  ■,  but  as  you  go  en,  and  on,  it  grows 
easier  and  easier. 

I  believe  I  have  not  used  it  for  four  or  five  years,  though  I  often 
used  it  before  that  time — the  figure  that  Agassiz  uses;  namely,  that 
the  growth  of  a  plant  is  in  three  stages  :  first,  by  the  root,  which  is  in- 
visible, and  is  the  slowest  and  longest ;  second,  by  the  stem,  which  is 
accelerated,  and  perhaps  not  half  as  long ;  and  third,  by  maturation 
or  ripening,  which  is  the  quickest  of  all.  The  root  takes  a  great  while 
to  grow  ;  the  stem  takes  a  little  less  time  ;  and  when  these  two  have 
become  developed,  they  rush  to  the  blossom,  and  through  the  blossom 
to  the  fruit.     And  the  last  of  the  three- periods  is  the  shortest. 

So  it  is  in  history.  The  earlier  stages  are  very  slow ;  the  intermediate 
stages  are  far  faster ;  and  the  final  or  ripening  stages  are  very  rajiid. 

Now,  as  the  past  has  been  largely  occupied  by  root-growth  in  moral 
things,  and  as  the  present  may  be  considered  the  period  of  growth  by 
the  stem,  so  I  think  we  are  standing  on  the  eve  of  the  period  of  growth 
by  maturation  and  ripening.  And  when  the  world  has  entered  upon 
this  last  period,  then  things  will  go  forward  with  greater  strides.  Then 
the  steps  will  be  quicker  and  quicker,  and  the  fruits  will  be  more  abun- 
dant. 

It  is  to  me,  therefore,  a  very  joyful  thought  for  Christmas  d  ly,  not 
only  that  we  have  a  religion  which  is  joy-producing  in  its  ultimate 
fruits,  but  that  which,  looked  upon  comprehensively,  has  already  pro- 
duced vast  cycles  of  joy,  asnd  raised  the  tone  of  joy  throughout  the 
world,  and  is  going  forward,  not  having  half  expended  its  force  yet,  to 
an  era  in  which  joy-producing  shall  be  more  apparent,  and  upon  a 
vaster  scale,  and  with  more  exquisite  fi-uit,  and  in  infinite  variety. 

While,  then,  to-day,  we  celebrate  the  coming  of  Christ,  and  give 
thanks  to  God  for  the  advent  ol  the  Saviour ;  while  we  also  recount 
the  blessings  which  in  our  several  experiences,  and  in  our  happy  fami- 
lies, have  come  from  our  adhesion  to  Christ,  or  from  our  birth  and 
education  in  a  Christian  land,  and  under  Christian  influences,  let  us  lift 
up  our  eyes,  and,  if  we  can,  enter  into  sympathy  with  God,  who,  sitting 
upon  the  circle  of  the  earth,  looks  at  all  the  races,  and  has  in  his 
sympathy  and  in  his  heart  the  welfare  of  the  lowest  savage  as  well  as 
the  highest  philosopher.  And  let  us  with  him  rejoice  that  the  time 
past  is  nearly  sufficient  in  which  the  world  has  wrought  the  will  of  the 
flesh,  that  the  days  of  the  flesh  are  fast  passing,  that  the  days  of  ths 
understanding  and  the  days  of  moral  sentiment  are  coming  quick,  and 
that  the  whole  earth  is  nearing  the  period  of  its  final  deliverance,  when 
the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth  in  which  dwell  righteousness  shall 
come,  and  Christ  shall  dwell  with  men,  and  they  shall  be  his  people. 


THE  ERA  OF  JOT.  2  <  9 

PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SER]\IOK 

"We  rejoice,  our  heavenly  Father,  for  all  the  mercies  which  have  come  to 
us  through  the  knowledge  of  thy  Son,  our  Saviour,  Jesus,  the  anointed.  Wo 
rejoice  in  the  ministration  of  mercy  wliich  he  hath  begotten,  and  wlxich  hath 
been  in  the  world,  working  mightily,  though  secretly,  and  which  still  doth 
work.  We  rejoice  that  the  revelation  of  the  mercy  of  God  is  growing  with 
the  ages,  and  that  God's  goodness  is  God's  omnipotence,  and  that  God's  wis- 
dom is  the  power  of  loving  and  the  mightiness  of  love  that  doth  shape  all 
things,  and  cause  them  in  the  end  to  conform  to  rectitude.  We  rejoice  that 
more  and  more  thou  art  preparing  men  to  receive  the  mystery  of  divine  life 
into  their  own  souls,  and  that  in  every  age  more  and  more  are  rising  up,  and 
that  the  whole  race  doth  seem  to  rise  and  follow,  though  with  unequal  steps. 
And  we  rejoice  thougli  the  work  is  prolonged  beyond  our  ignorant  expec- 
tation, and  though  there  is  mystery  yet  in  the  evolution  of  things,  and 
though  by  searching  we  can  neither  And  them  out  to  perfection,  nor  thy 
wondrous  works  among  men ,  that  our  faith  moves  with  firmer  and  firmer 
steps  toward  tliy  being,  and  thy  wisdom,  and  thy  goodness  in  thine  actual 
power  in  the  affairs  of  men;  and  that  the  destiny  of  the  races,  and  of  the 
earth  itself,  is  more  and  more  clear,  though  we  cannot  descry  it  in  particu- 
lars, and  though  it  hangs  like  the  liglit  in  the  horizon.  Like  the  |light,  it 
portends  that  the  night  is  past,  and  that  the  day  is  at  hand.  And  we  rejoice 
with  joy  unspeakable,  at  times,  and  full  of  glory. 

And  now  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  every  one  of  us  may 
accept  Jesus  Christ  as  our  personal  Saviour.  May  we  learn  to  love  him,  not 
as  he  walked  in  Jerusalem,  not  as  he  taught  in  Galilee,  but  as  the  ever- living^ 
Saviour  at  the  right  hand  of  God;  as  our  companion  that  from  above  sways 
all  things,  and  dwells  in  all  that  open  their  hearts  to  receive  him ;  as  known 
in  providence,  moving  through  all  the  ways  of  nature,  and  controlling  still 
the  world  that  was  made  by  him. 

Grant  that  our  Saviour  may  be  a  living  one,  so  that  we  may  feel,  in  the 
solitude  of  the  night,  or  away  from  all  companionship  other,  that  we  have 
One  that  is  near  to  us  whose  ear  can  hear  our  faintest  cry;  whose  heart 
echoes  every  sorrow  of  our  heart;  who  knows  us  altogether;  before  whom 
we  are  open  and  naked.  And  grant  that  we  may  draw  near  as  to  a  merciful 
High-priest,  whose  offices  toward  us  are  offices  of  naercy,  to  rescue  us  from 
pain  and  ignorance,  and  to  rescue  us  from  the  penalty  of  our  own  passions, 
and  to  deliver  us  from  the  thrall  of  ignorance,  and  from  the  bondage  of  fear, 
and  from  all  remorse,  and  to  work  in  us  mightily  a  true  birth  of  true  living, 
80  that  we  may  become  the  sons  of  God,  and  be  exalted  by  adoption  into  the 
household  of  faith,  and  become  of  the  family  of  God,  heirs  of  heaven,  heirs 
and  joint-heirs  with  Jesus  to  an  eternal  inheritance  therein. 

Grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  every  one  that  has  known  thy  name,  and 
revered  it  in  days  past,  may  to-day  have  a  fresh  baptism,  and  be  able  to 
accept  again,  with  more  gladness  and  heartiness,  the  service  of  the  Saviour. 
And  may  those  that  are  just  beginning  to  walk,  as  babes  learning  their  first 
steps,  be  surrounded  with  more  than  paternal  tenderness  from  on  high,  and 
be  borne  in  the  arms  of  divine  mercy,  if  they  cannot  carry  themselves.  May 
they  feel  that  God  sui rounds  them  with  infinite  gentleness  and  tenderness 
and  canfulness.  May  they  not  be  afraid,  but  may  they  put  their  whole 
trust  in  him,  and  be  sure  that  he  will  keep  that  which  they  have  committed 
to  him  unto  the  day  of  redemption.  And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt 
draw  many  that  have  wandered  from  the  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  their  souls 
back  again  to  the  knowledge  of  their  childhood,  and  to  the  faith  of  their 
fathers.    May  they  learn  the  simplicity  of  holy  obedience.    May  they  learn 


280  THE  ERA  OF  JOT, 

to  live  for  thee.  May  they  discern  invisible  things,  and  kuov/  the  power  of 
the  world  to  comi\  May  they  become  friends  with  thee,  consecrated  in  a 
new  and  eternal  bond  of  friendship.  May  they  begin  that  new  li  f e  which 
Bhall  have  immortality  for  its  blossom. 

And  we  pray,  O  Lord !  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  the  labors  of  thy  seryants 
that  endeavor  through  the  year  to  (mltivate  in  men  the  knowledge  of  Christ, 
and  the  graces  of  the  Christian  life.  Open  their  understanding,  that  they 
may  have  a  true  conception,  from  day  to  day,  themselves,  of  the  way  of 
holiness.  Give  them  faith ;  give  them  patience ;  give  them  strength.  May 
they  not  be  weary  of  well  doing.  Even  when  they  go  forth  sowing  seed, 
precious  seed,  with  tears,  may  they  be  sure  that  they  shall  come  again,  by 
and  by,  with  their  bosom  filled  with  sheaves. 

We  pray,  O  Lord !  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  those  that  are  showing  mercy 
to  the  outcast,  and  searching  out  the  dark  and  ignorant  ones,  and  going  out 
to  the  wanderers,  may  theinselves  expeiieuce  new  consecration,  and  the 
divine  blessing,  from  day  to  day.  Fulfill  to  them  all  the  promise  that  they 
shall  be  watered  themselves  that  water  others. 

And  we  pray,  O  Lord!  thi^t  thy  name  may  be  known  and  honored  in  all 
thy  Churches  more  and  more.  And  may  thy  people  that  are  happily  draw- 
ing nearer  together  learn  yet  more  of  concord  and  less  of  conflict.  And  we 
pray  that  thou  wilt  hasten  the  time  when  all  Churches,  of  every  name,  shall 
love  thee  so  much  that  they  shall  be  able  to  love  each  other.  Grant  that  that 
which  is  Christ's  may  seem  inestimably  precious  to  all  the  disciples  of  Christ. 
And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  unite  men  in  heart  that  in  outward 
things  may  still  be  separated. 

We  pray  for  tat-  advance  of  thy  kingdom;  for  the  spread  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  Christ  ill  the  desolate  parts  of  the  earth,  where  no  man  hath  yet 
lifted  up  the  standard  of  the  Cross.  There  may  the  voice  of  the  preacher  be 
heard.  Throughout  the  dark  places  of  the  earth,  and  in  the  habitations  of 
cruelty,  may  there  be  the  spirit  of  wisdom,  and  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  of 
God  in  the  hearts  of  men. 

Hasten  the  day  predicted,  when  knowledge  shall  run  to  and  fro  through 
all  the  earth.  May  superstition  perish.  May  ignorance  depart  before  intel- 
ligence, as  the  darkness  of  the  night  before  the  morning.  And  grant  that 
nations  may  torment  nations  no  more;  that  justice,  peace  ana  mercj  may 
prevail  everywhere;  and  the  whole  earth  see  thy  salvation. 

We  ask  it  in  Chi'ist'.s  name.    Amon. 


XVII. 

Intensity  of  Spirit. 


INVOCATION. 

Our  HeaTenly  Father,  wilt  thou  smile  upon  us  this  morning.  Arise,  Sun 
of  Righteousness,  with  healing  in  thy  beams.  Grant  us  that  light  which 
never  fails — which  comes  from  above,  and  leads  us  thither.  Accept  our  offer- 
ings of  praise.  Inspire  in  us  hearts  of  love  and  of  thanksgiving.  "Walk  with 
us,  that  we  may  walk  with  God.  And  may  the  service  of  the  day  and  of  the 
year  upon  which  we  are  entering,  be  acceptable  in  thy  sight,  O  Lord,  our 
strength  and  our  wisdom.    Amen. 

17 


INTENSITY  or  SPIRIT. 


"Lord,  lielp  me." — Matt,  xv.,  25. 


How  ligbtly  that  phrase  drops  from  the  lips  of  thousands  who,  when 
pressed  by  a  Httle  care,  or  vexed  by  some  intemperate  act,  are  accus- 
tomed, as  it  were,  to  fling  it  toward  the  sky !  How  often  we  invoke 
the  name  of  God  for  our  most  pitiful  needs,  and  how  often  we  avoid 
it  in  the  profoundest  depths  of  our  necessity  !  They  cannot  imagine 
the  intensity  of  this  simple  petition  in  this  remarkable  history,  who 
have  never  themselves  suffered,  and  been  wrung  with  suffering.  For 
this  is  a  portion  of  one  of  the  most  striking  incidents  in  the  life  of 
Jesus. 

Only  once  during  his  active  ministry  did  he  go  out  of  the  bounds 
of  Palestine,  in  so  far  as  we  know  ;  and  this  was  the  time.  He  pro- 
ceeded north  from  Galilee ;  and,  turning  toward  his  left,  went  on  near 
to  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  in  the  vicinity  of  Tyre  and  Sidon.  It  is  not 
stated  that  he  entered  either  of  those  cities,  although  it  is  possible.  It 
is  said  that  he  came  into  their  borders,  which  would  seem  to  imply 
that  he  only  approached  that  populous  district  which  usually  lies  around 
about  the  vicinity  of  cities.  It  seems  to  have  been  his  desire  to  j^reach 
once,  at  least,  in  every  portion  of  Palestine  and  of  its  immediate  vi- 
cinity where  his  countrymen  were  to  be  found,  and  to  make  known  to 
them  this  new  spiritual  kingdom. 

He  made  three  enth'e  circuits,  apparently,  of  the  whole  of  Pales- 
tine ;  and  of  Galilee  some  eight  or  ten  circuits.  There  were  many  Jews 
in  this  vicinity.  Already  they  had  become  commercial  adventui'ers,  and 
had  flocked  to  large  cities  and  sea-ports.  The  Jews  had  gone  out  into 
the  Greek  cities  of  Asia  Minor  ;  they  had  peneti'ated  perhaps  even 
to  Italy,  and  to  Rome,  and  to  Damascus  ;  and  all  the  great  cities  east 
were  full  of  them.  They  had  gone  down  to  Egypt.  They  were  the 
Yankees  of  antiquity  in  Palestine  and  Alexandria.  So  populous 
had  they  become,  and  so  rich,  that  there  they  had  built  a  new  tem- 
ple— the  only  duplication  of  the  temple  in  Jerusalem  that  I  know 
of      And  everywhere  their  synagogues  and  their  schools  were  found. 

StTNDAT  Morning,  Jan.  1, 1871.   Lesson  :   Luke  xtIII.     Htmns  (PlymouW    rollection) : 
Nos.  286,  130. 


282  INTENSITY  OF  SPIRIT, 

For,  chiefest  of  all  nations  of  antiquity,  the  Jews  believed  in  education, 

and  everywhere  made  provision  for  what  to  them  was  equivalent  to  our 

common  schools  ;  and  more  nearly  like  these  schools  than  those  in  any 

other  nation  of  olden  times,  and  I  might  say  than  in  most  nations  of 

modern  times,  was  their  system  of  educating  the  common  people. 

Our  Lord  seems  to  have  gone  toward  Tyre  and  Sidon,  following  the 

track  of  his  countrymen,  and  preaching  the  kingdom  as  he  went.     It 

seems  that  he  did  not  desire  publicity — at  least  not  now  and  here.  For 

it  is  said, 

"  He  entered  into  an  house,  and  would  have  no  man  know  it,  but  he  could 
not  be  hid." 

His  iiime  preceded  him.  The  enthusiasm  that  went  with  him  was 
like  a  fire,  and  caught  material  everywhere  for  new  flame  and  fervor. 
While  he  was  thus  hiding  himself  and  resting,  there  came  to  him 
a  native  woman  of  mixed  blood — "  a  woman  of  Canaan,"  it  is  said — 
that  is,  a  woman  of  the  Canaanites;  "a  Greek,"  again  it  is  said;  "a 
Syrophoenician,"  it  is  said  in  another  place ;  in  other  words,  a  woman 
who  lived  in  these  Phcenician  cities,  and  had  a  Greek  parent  (probably 
a  Greek  mother),  and  was  of  the  people  of  the  land  on  the  other  side, — 
came  to  him.  Her  errand  was  one  of  maternal  love.  Her  daughter 
was  subject  to  demoniac  possessions.  Her  first  appearance  was  with 
this  outcry : 
"  Have  mercy  upon  me,  O  Lord,  thou  son  of  David !" 
This  may  seem  a  strange  salutation  from  one  of  a  Gentile  nation.  It 
was  the  Jew  that  would  naturally  have  addressed  to  Christ  that  pecu- 
liar title,  "Thou  Son  of  David,"  which  carried  in  it  the  intimation  of 
royalty;  but  doubtless  she  had  seen  Christ,  and  had  heard  the  throng 
speak  of  him  ;  and,  with  the  ready  wit  of  an  earnest  heart,  seeking  fa- 
vor, doubtless  she  thought  that  that  was  the  title  which  perhaps  would 
win  favor  for  her.  And  so  she,  though  a  Gentile,  and  knowing  little 
of  who  David  was,  and  hearing  others  speaking  of  him  as  of  that  royal 
lineage,  approached  him  with  this  intended  compliment: 

"Have  mercy  upon  me,  thou  Son  of  David;  my  daughter  is  grievously 
vexed  with  a  devil." 

Is  there  another  plea  imaginable  more  potent  with  God  than  that 
of  a  mother  pleading  for  a  daughter?  What  depths  of  love  !  What 
depths  of  anguish !  And  in  this  case,  what  anxious  days  and  nights  I 
What  hopes  and  fears !  What  long  waiting !  And  now,  in  the  height 
of  her  distress,  comes  the  man  who  is  filling  the  land  with  the  fame  of 
his  miracles  of  healing.  Before  all  others,  surely,  he  will  address  his 
mercy  to  this  case,  wlien  a  mother  pleads  for  a  daughter,  that  a  demon 
may  be  cast  out  of  her. 

Strange  contrast !     He  met  her  outcry  without  one  single  word  or 


INTENSITY  OF  SPIRIT.  283 

look  of  sympathy.    Bfad  he  no  pity  ?    Did  he  not  care  for  the  sufferer  ? 

"  He  answered  her  not  a  word,"  is  the  record. 

*'  Have  mercy  on  me,  O  Lord,  thou  Son  of  David,  my  daughter  is  grievously 
vexed  with  a  devil.    And  he  answered  her  not  a  word." 

Was  he  so  worn  out  with  labor  that  his  susceptibility  slept  ?  or  did 
he  not  care  for  her  because  she  was  a  Gentile  ? 

There  was  evidently  a  considerable  period  of  seeming  indifference 
during  which  the  Saviour  must  have  denied  her  passionate  appeal ;  for 
his  disciples,  often  officious  in  their  care  of  him,  came  to  him,  and  be- 
sought him,  saying, 

"  Send  her  away ;  for  she  crieth  after  us." 

He  replies,  enigmatically,  that  his  mission  is  to  his  own  countiy- 
men. 

•*  I  am  not  sent  but  unto  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel." 

This  seems  to  be  a  justifying  of  himself  by  appealing  to  the  preju- 
dices of  his  disciples  in  favor  of  their  own  peojjle,  as  distinguished  from 
Gentiles.  It  sounds,  too,  very  strange^  when  we  consider  that  he  came 
to  die  for  the  world,  and  that  his  whole  ministry  was  a  continual  pro- 
test against  this  very  Jewish  narrowness,  but  in  favor  of  universal 
charity.  He  seems  here  to  appeal  to  that  very  Jewish  prejudice,  and 
that  very  national  exclusiveness,  which  it  was  one  of  the  chief  objects 
of  his  mission  to  overeome. 

So  then,  it  is  plain  to  be  seen  that  this  was  a  drama.  We  all  know 
that  it  must  have  been.  It  was  very  unlike  the  popular  idea  of  Christ's 
habits  Avhich  now  exists,  and  entirely  like  his  real  habits,  which  were 
not  always  merely  literal  and  direct.  It  is  supposed  that  the  Lord 
Jesus,  in  his  earthly  carriage  and  teaching  and  intercourse,  was  as  sim- 
ple, and  as  transparent,  and  as  level,  as  a  man  could  be.  Because  he 
was  pure,  and  because  he  was  gentle,  people  think  that  he  was  flat. 
Nothing  can  be  more  untrue.  No  being  was  ever  more  mutable, 
more  changeable,  with  every  mood  and  variety  ;  no  being  ever  opened 
up  more  richly  and  more  strangely  ;  no  being  could  be  less  presumed 
of.  You  could  presume  less  in  regard  to  him  than  in  regard  to  almost 
any  other  one,  as  to  what  he  would  say,  and  what  he  would  do,  and 
how  he  would  demean  himself,  from  what  you  had  seen  the  day  before. 
Of  infinite  variety  that  never  staled,  nor  was  in  danger  of  it,  Christ's 
whc^  career  afforded  an  eminent  example.  He  often  hid  his  nature. 
He  often  put  forward  what  seemed  to  be  mere  tentative  appearances, 
and  drew  them  back  again  upon  occasion.  As  a  mother  plays  with 
her  child  by  a  thousand  devices,  so  played  he  with  men's  thoughts  and 
feelings  and  fancies.  He  played  with  the  meanings  of  Avords.  He 
dealt  in  enigmas,  in  paradoxes,  in  dark  sayings.  He  was  full  of  variety. 


284  INTENSITY  OF  SPIRIT. 

His  teaching  and  his  conduct  were  not  only  various,  but  full  of  hid- 
ings and  surprises. 

So  it  was  in  this  instance.  It  was  a  notable  instance  of  that  genius 
and  tendency  of  our  Saviour.  It  is  plain  that  he  held  this  woman  off 
that  her  heart  might  develop  a  greater  intensity,  and  that  there  might 
spring  up  before  his  disciples,  as  it  were,  a  new  problem  in  moral  life. 
It  was  not  only  for  the  sake  of  her  benefit,  but  for  the  sake  of  its  effect 
upon  others,  that  he  took  this  course.  He  would  have  her  manifest  an 
intensity  of  faith  of  which  she  would  not  be  capable  under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances, and  which  could  not  be  expected  except  by  some  such 
process  as  this.  Here  was  escape  for  the  woman's  child,  and  she  knew 
it ;  and  she  seemed  likely  to  lose  it ;  and  love  wrought  courage  and 
sublime  importunity.  For  she  drew  near,  and  bowed  herself  to  the 
gi'ound  reverentially  (for  this  is  the  meaning  of  worshiped  him),  and 
put  her  heart's  life  into  the  simple  words,  "Lord,  help  me  !" 

Jesus  spake — but  not  jet  even  sympathetically.  He  spake  as  a  cold 

and  haughty  Jew  would.      He  said,  in  words  that  sounded  very  harsh 

to  her, 

"  Let  the  children  first  be  filled ;  for  it  is  not  meet  to  take  the  children's 
bread  and  to  cast  it  unto  the  dogs." 

But  he  knew  as  well  as  you  and  I  know,  that  mercy  to  the  Gentiles 
would  abstract  nothing  from  mercy  to  the  Jews.  Still,  this  spiritual 
drama  ran  on. 

A  mother's  love  has  in  it  all  courage,  all  patience,  all  humility,  all 
faith ;  and  although  she  was  called  a  Gentile,  although  she  was  an  out/- 
sider,  although  she  was  arraigned  apparently  as  inferior  to  the  Jews,  al- 
though she  Avas  likened  to  the  dogs,  yet,  listen  to  the  sweetness  and  the 
beauty  of  her  answer  to  Christ's  declaration  that  it  was  not  meet  to 
take  the  children's  bread  and  east  it  to  the  dogs.     She  said, 

"  Truth,  Lord ;  yet  the  little  dogs  [for  it  is  that  in  the  original]  eat  of  the 
crumbs  which  fall  from  their  masters'  table." 

And  now,  with  sweet  spirit,  with  yielding,  without  anger,  her  per- 
sistent importunity  having  made  itself  fully  manifest,  he  turned  to  her 
and  said, 

"  O  woman !  great  is  thy  faith ;  be  it  unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt.  And  her 
daughter  was  made  whole  from  that  very  hour." 

Have  you  not  seen  the  whole  summer's  day  go  over  with  clouds  in 
the  sky,  deep,  dark,  full  of  the  threat  of  storms  ;  but  as  the  evening 
drew  near  and  the  winds  shifted  to  the  south  and  to  the  west,  have 
you  not  seen  streak  across  the  horizon  a  line  of  light,  which,  becoming 
•wider  and  wider,  spread  up  into  the  heavens  ;  and  ere  a  half  hour  have 
you  not  seen  the  whole  heavens  shine  radiant,  and  the  sunbeams  bathe 
the  world  again,  and  make  hill  and  valley  and  all  nature  rejoice?     So. 


INTENSITY  OF  SPIRIT.  286 

in  the  early  part  of  her  interview  all  was  sad  and  dark  and  repulsive ; 
but  ere  long  the  love  of  Christ's  heart  broke  forth,  and  dissipated  all  that 
seemed  gloomy  and  forbidding,  and  all  was  joy  and  peace. 

A  variety  of  thoughts,  suggested  for  our  profit,  are  to  be  derived 
from  this  narrative : 

1.  Gifts  that  come  to  us  from  the  outside,  procured  by  another, 
though  they  may  be  precious,  and  may  bring  to  us  joy  and  profit,  are 
after  all  not  to  be  compared  with  those  gifts  which  come  to  us  through 
the  arousing  of  our  own  inward  nature.  Had  our  Saviour,  when  this 
woman  made  petition,  at  once  granted  her  request,  it  would  have  been 
a  great  boon  to  her.  Had  he  healed  her  child  by  a  word,  and  passed 
on,  that  child  would  have  bloomed  in  the  household,  and  the  mother 
would  never  have  forgotten  the  work  of  mercy  which  had  been  wrought 
for  her;  and  yet,  after  all,  she  herself  never  would  have  been  as  large 
as  she  must  have  been  after  that  interview.  By  mercies  that  are  wrought 
out  and  brought  in  their  entireness  to  us,  and  then  passed  over  into  our 
own  hands,  we  having  had  no  agency  in  the  procuring  of  them — by 
such  mercies  we  are  less  blessed  than  when  our  friends  are  kind 
to  us  through  our  own  activity  in  such  a  way  "as  to  raise  up  and 
educate  and  thoroughly  strengthen  that  which  is  good  within  us. 
The  soul-power  is  manhood.  He  who  blesses  you  in  body  or  in  estate 
is  not  to  be  considered  less  than  a  benefactor  ;  but  he  who  blesses  your 
manhood  is  your  best  friend.  He  who  has  a  heart  of  afiection  towards 
you,  so  that  it  cultivates  affection  in  you  ;  he  who  knows  how  to  in- 
struct you  so  that  you  are  stimulated  to  instruct  yourself;  he  who  con- 
veys to  you  outward  blessings  such  as  wealth  or  position  in  life  in  such 
a  way  that  you  are  obliged  to  stamp  your  thought  on  them,  and  in  or- 
der to  that  to  be  developed  and  educated — he  is  the  greater  benefactor. 
For  it  is  not  what  we  have  given  to  us,  but  that  which  the  gifts  do  in 
us  and  upon  us,  that  measures  their  value  and  their  power.  Too  easy 
an  abundance  in  this  world  leads  to  self-indulgence,  which  is  self-ex- 
tinction substantially — for  self-indulgence  always  degenerates  and 
works  down,  and  down. 

The  economy  of  mercy,  the  economy  of  society,  and  so  of  nature, 
the  whole  development  of  the  divine  moral  government  as  manifested 
in  the  economy  of  God  in  spiritual  things,  seems  to  give  nothing 
easily  ;  to  tax  and  task  men  for  that  which  they  are  to  receive  ;  to 
make  blessings  shine  and  attract — but  after  all  to  hang  them  so  hio-h 
that  no  man  shall  have  them  that  does  not  leap  for  them,  that  does  not 
work  for  them,  that  does  not  exert  himself  for  them.  The  things 
M'hich  men  task  themselves  for,  and  which,  after  they  are  obtained, 
repi-esent  exertion,  and  the  exertion  of  the  highest  part  of  our  na- 
ture— these  thincTs  rank  highest  and  first. 


286  INTENSITY  OF  SPIRIT. 

So,  then,  the  things  which  men  value  most,  often  are  the  least  valu- 
able tilings  about  them.  The  large  estate  which  comes  without  a 
thought  to  the  heir  is  an  advantage,  and  is  not  likely  to  be  refused ; 
but,  after  all,  the  few  thousands  that  have  been  painfully  wrought  out 
by  enterprise,  and  industry,  and  patience,  and  faith,  and  integrity,  are 
worth  more  to  a  man  than  millions  on  which  he  has  never  laid  his  hand» 
because  they  represent  education  in  him.  They  not  only  stand  for 
what  they  are  themselves,  but  they  have  been  a  school.  They  have  his- 
tory.    There  is  a  training  in  them. 

When,  therefore,  we  ask  mercies  of  God,  we  should  remember  that 
we  are  to  ask  in  the  line  of  his  own  providence  and  according  to  the 
constitution  which  he  has  established,  both  in  the  natural  and  in  the 
spiritual  world.  When  we  ask  that  we  may  sit  upon  his  right  hand 
and  upon  his  left,  that  we  may  be  advanced  in  honor,  in  strength  or  in 
moral  excellence,  let  us  remember  that  we  ask  a  gift  which  may  re- 
quire him  to  exercise  us  to  the  uttermost ;  to  put  us  through  the  fire, 
through  the  flood,  through  the  severe  school  of  the  soldier  of  campaigns, 
so  that  when  the  gift  comes  it  will  seem  to  us  to  have  come  from  God. 

Now,  Christ  meant  to  heal  this  woman's  child  all  the  time  ;  but  he 
dallied  with  her,  he  parleyed  with  her,  as  if  she  were  a  Gentile  and  not 
within  his  diocese  ;  as  if  there  were  not  enough  mercy  for  both  the  Jews 
and  the  Gentiles.  And  so  he  aroused  her  and  stimulated  her  desires  until 
she  became  impetuous  in  her  earnestness  and  faith ;  and  then,  the  mo- 
ment when  her  heart  blossomed,  he  gave  her  her  request.  Thus, 
often,  God  in  this  world,  in  dealing  with  his  children,  weighs  upon  their 
strength  and  tasks  their  patience  for  a  long  time,  and  seems  to  answer 
their  petitions  with  strokes,  and  their  importunities  with  judgments, 
and  their  entreaties  with  pains ;  and  j'et  in  the  end  he  hears  their  re- 
quest, and  blesses  them. 

So,  remembering  this  providence  and  this  dispensation,  when  we 
ask  God  for  mercies,  let  us  not  forget  that  oftentimes  if  we  take  his 
blessings,  we  must  take  them  from  a  fiery  hand.  The  mercy  which 
comes  to  us  may  be  a  mercy  which  comes  with  chastisements,  that  we 
may  be  w  aked  up,  and  that  afterwards  we  may  be  qualified  to  receive 
God's  kind  and  loving  ministration. 

2.  God's  dealings  with  men  are  largely  in  this  way,  as  they  are  re- 
vealed to  us  in  providence.  We  have  a  distinct  revelation  of  this  fact 
in  the  twelfth  of  Hebrews,  in  that  memorable  passage  in  which  the 
apostle  says, 

"  Ye  have  not  yet  resisted  unto  blood,  striving  against  sin.  And  ye  have 
forgotten  the  exhortation  which  speaketh  unto  you  as  unto  children,  My 
BOD,  despise  not  thou  the  chastening  of  the  Lord,  nor  faint  when  thou  art 
rebuked  of  him ;  for  whom  the  Lord  loveth  he  chasteneth,  and  scourgeth 
every  son  whom  he  receiveth.    If  ye  endure  chastening  [if  you  understand 


INTENSITY  OF  SPIRIT.  287 

it,  and  enter  into  this  school  ficcorrling  to  its  nature  and  law],  God  dealeth 
with  you  as  with  sons."  "We  have  had  fathers  of  our  flesh  which  corrected 
us ;  and  we  gave  them  reverence ;  shall  we  not  much  rather  be  in  subjection 
unto  tlie  Father  of  Spirits  and  live  ?  For  they  verily  for  a  few  days  chasten 
us  after  their  pleasure  [that  is,  according  to  their  best  judgment],  but  he  for 
our  profit,  that  we  might  be  partakers  of  his  holiness." 

Now,  all  suffei'ing  in  this  world  certainly  does  not  tend  to  the  pro- 
duction of  spiritual  fruit ;  and  yet,  thei-e  can  be  no  question  as  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  New  Testament,  that,  in  the  economy  of  providence, 
suffering  should  work  and  drive  men  from  their  lower  plane  toward  a 
higher  plane,  step  by  step.  There  can  be  no  question  that  divine  prov- 
idence is  conducted  upon  this  principle,  and  that  the  whole  retinue  of 
sorrows,  and  tears,  and  cares,  and  burdens,  have  a  mission  among  men. 
In  one  way,  it  may  be  that  they  are  from  violations  of  natural  law,  and 
that  in  such  a  sense  they  are  penalty  ;  but  in  another  way  they  are  all 
of  them  working  toward  a  higher  education,  driving  us  from  a  reliance 
upon  our  physical  life,  and  making  us  rely  more  upon  onr  social  rela- 
tions, and  then  augmenting  our  social  relations,  so  that  we  shall  take 
in  the  invisible  and  spiritual,  as  well  as  the  tempoi'al  and  visible,  and 
teaching  us  that  there  is  nothing  on  earth  which  can  be  a  satisftic- 
tion  to  the  soul  that  needs  infinity,  and  so  bringing  us  to  take  in  the 
coming  world,  and  developing  us  from  the  lowest  state  of  physical 
things,  up  through  the  social  and  intellectual  nature  to  the  divina  and 
heavenly  nature,  that  we  may  become  partakers  of  the  nature  o^3^od. 
And  when  we  look  out  upon  the  world,  it  is  because  we  misunderstand 
its  economy,  that  we  say,  "  There  is  no  evidence  of  divine  providence ; 
see  how  things  are  mixed  together;  see  how  sufterings  fiall  upon  all 
alike  ;  see  how  there  are  no  guiding  principles ;  see  how  there  is  no 
government  that  arranges  all  things  according  to  justice  and  equity." 
Yes,  there  is  a  government  of  that  kind  ;  but  there  is  a  department  of 
that  same  government  which  is  inflicting  trial,  and  task,  and  suffer- 
ing for  the  sake  of  higher  moral  development.  And  as  the  Saviour 
answered  the  mother  when  she  plead  for  her  child,  after  he  had  in- 
structed her  higher  nature,  and  developed  her  spiritual  fervor  and  in- 
tensity; so  God  is  still  doing.  He  is  answering  our  prayers  in  provi- 
'dence,  first  by  strokes  and  chastisements,  and  then  by  turning  and 
saying,  "  These  chastisements  are  not  without  a  purpose.  They  are 
parental  benedictions.  They  are  education,  to  make  you  sons  of  God, 
and  to  bring  you  home  finally  to  the  heavenly  state." 

3-  There  is  great  power  with  God  in  spiritual  intensity.  Calmness 
has  its  place  in  the  experience  of  the  soul ;  and  all  the  mild  virtues 
have  their  place,  and  are  full  beautiful.  It  is  not  necessary  that  we 
should  overrun  them  with  reproach.  It  is  not  necessary  that  men  of 
intense  and  fervent  natures  should  undervalue  quiet  and  mild  natures ; 


288  INTENSITY  OF  SPIRIT. 

nor  is  it  necessary  that  quiet  and  mild  natures  should  look  -^ith  con- 
temjit  upon  intense  and  fervent  natures;  for  both  of  them  are  a  part  of 
that  great  constitution  of  which  we  have  each  but  little  fragments. 
There  can  be  no  question  that  the  philosophy  of  the  New  Testament  is., 
that  while  the  later  ages  of  Christian  development  tend  more  and  more 
toward  peace  and  calmness  in  working  out  our  salvation,  there  is  in 
fervor,  there  is  in  intensity,  great  power — and  not  merely  power  of 
which  we  gain  an  analogy  in  physical  things.  I  mean  that  God  reveals 
himself  as  one  that  is  accessible. 

There  are  experiences,  then,  in  every  man's  life,  which  are  mutable, 
and  which  may  be  changed  without  any  interference  with  the  divine 
thought  in  the  creation  and  management  of  things.  God  is  not 
limited.  He  is  not  shut  up  in  his  own  laws.  He  is  not  a  prisoner  in 
the  world.  He  has  power  over  what  he  has  made,  and  he  has  the 
means  of  interpenetrating  the  constitution  of  things  which  he  has 
established.  He  can,  if  he  please,  add  ten  thousand  things  which  do 
not  fall  out  in  accordance  with  ordinary  law.  And  he  will  do  things 
in  response  to  our  importunity.  He  will  do  things  for  his  children,  on 
persuasion,  provided  they  be  things  that  are  needful ;  provided  the 
heart  be  prepared  for  them  ;  and  provided  it  has  that  faith  which 
shows  that  the  soul  has  risen  into  a  condition  to  be  benefited  by  the 
thin|p  done.  And  we  are  not  left  in  doubt  that  there  are  mercies 
for  God's  people  of  which  they  have  little  conception,  and  which 
belong  to  the  realm  of  intensity  in  spiritual  desire. 

Now,  let  us  apply  these  thoughts. 

In  the  first  place,  men  have  an  impression  that  all  that  is  necegsary 
is,  that  they  should  watch  against  temptation,  and  strive  against  easily 
besetting  sins,  and  be  vigilant  and  laborious  to  overcome  that  which 
is  wrong.  There  are  few  men  who  do  battle  against  sin  in  the  higher 
forms  of  spiritual  intensity. 

It  is  said  that  men  are  sinful,  and  will  be  to  the  end  of  life.  It  is 
said,  in  reference  to  certain  constitutional  sins,  that  we  must  expect 
that  they  will  show  themselves  in  those  who  are  subject  to  them  to  the 
day  of  their  death.  That  is  all  true  in  the  lower  sphere ;  but  I  believe 
there  is  a  Holy  Ghost  that  may  be  shed  abroad  in  the  hearts  of  men 
by  which  they  may  be  so  transformed  that  every  evil,  as  it  were,  may 
be  burnt  out  of  them.  It  is  in  the  power  of  education  to  put  men  to 
school  in  such  a  way  that  temptations  and  faults  and  sins  of  the  most 
mighty  kinds  may  be  efiectually  destroyed.  A  man  who,  like  Saul, 
is  hard,  and  selfish,  and  proud,  and  hateful,  and  bigoted,  and  arrogant, 
and  persecuting,  may  become  sweet,  and  gentle,  and  magnanimous, 
and  full  of  sympathy,  like  Paul.  He  that  has  lived  for  himself,  and 
sacrificed  others  for  himself,  may  be  led  to  live  for  others,  and  to 


INTENSITY  OF  SPIRIT.  2£  9 

sacrifice  himself  for  them,  dying  deaths  daily.  There  is  a  power  by  I 
which  men  may  overcome  their  easily  besetting  sins,  and  go  into  the 
very  fastnesses  of  their  own  souls,  and  drive  out  all  evil  tendencies,' 
and  place  there  all  the  higher  elements  which  God  has  provided  for 
them,  if  they  will  rise  to  the  intensity  of  the  Syrophoenician  woman. 
But  it  is  not  a  mere  wishing,  it  is  not  an  ordinary  solicitation,  that 
will  bring  this  about.  It  is  when  heart,  and  soul,  and  imagination, 
and  the  faith  of  hope  and  desire  are  concentrated,  and  the  soul  cries 
out,  "  Lord,  help  me !"  that  help  comes,  and  is  followed  by  the  baptism 
of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

So,  in  the  conflicts  to  which  we  are  called  with  care  and  Avith 
trouble  in  this  life,  men  are  often  overborne.  Though  they  seek  to 
bear  up  the  best  way  they  can,  their  trouble  accumulates,  and  their 
strength  seems  to  decrease.  Many  and  many  a  one  falls  down  dis- 
couraged, and  says,  "  I  cannot ;  I  cannot  ;  I  am  overtasked  ;  I  am 
overburdened."  Yes,  the  natural  man  is.  Men's  trials  are  probably 
not  less  than  they  think  them  to  be,  although  they  may  be  relatively- 
less,  and  it  is  hard  for  those  who  are  in  good  health  to  stand  and  sfive 
consolation  to  those  that  are  sick.  It  is  hard  for  men  who  have  great 
abundance  to  stand  in  that  abundance  and  give  good  advice  to  those 
who  are  girded  by  all  the  troubles  of  poverty.  Nevertheless,  for  that 
great  army  of  sufferers  through  poverty,  through  disappointments, 
through  cares,  through  troubles,  through  bereavement,  through  sick- 
nesses, through  conflicts,  through  all  those  trials  which  find  their  way 
into  the  household,  and  hover  around  the  couch  or  over  the  cradle, 
there  is  relief  All  these  causes  of  suffering  are  vincible  by  the  spirit 
of  man.  There  is  power  in  every  one  to  rise  up  into  the  communion 
of  God  in  such  a  way  that  there  shall  descend  from  the  divine  Spirit 
victorious  intensity.     But  this  comes  only  by  prayer  and  fasting. 

Thus,  when  we  are  laboring  for  those  who  are  dear  to  us — for  our 
children,  for  our  pupils,  for  our  friends ;  when  we  are  seeking  to  bear 
them  up  to  a  higher  level,  or  to  recover  them  out  of  the  slough  ;  when 
the  sky  is  overcast ;  when  disappointment  has  put  its  cup  to  our  lip  ; 
when  for  days,  and  months,  and,  it  may  be,  years  of  weary  waiting, 
we  are  almost  disposed  to  give  up,  to  lay  down  the  conflict,  there  is 
power  of  relief  even  in  the  most  desperate  circumstances.  There  may 
be  a  faith,  there  may  be  importunity  springing  up  from  the  soul  of 
man.  Chiist  may,  for  you,  as  he  did  for  the  Syrophoenician  woman, 
cast  the  demon  out,  and  say,  "Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee." 

How  little  do  we  agonize  !  How  little  do  we  lay  ourselves  out 
for  those  whom  we  seek  to  save  with  all  the  strength  there  is  in  us ! 
How  few  have  ever  felt  the  energy  of  a  soul-burning  fi^ith  !  How 
few  have  ever  felt  toward  a  fellow-creature,  according  to  the  measure 


290  INTENSITY  OF  SPIRIT. 

cf  man,  tliat  intensity  of  influence  which  God  exerts  from  his  gi-eat 
poul  upon  all  those  whom  he  would  save!  We  know  not  what  we  can 
do,  and  wTiat  power  there  is  in  us,  till  we  are  raised  by  the  Spirit  of 
God  to  these  higher  conditions  of  intensity. 

The  work  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth  needs  this  spiritual 
energy.  We  come  to  this  work  too  often  feeling  that  giving  to  it  our 
alternative  time  is  enough.  We  give  to  God  what  is  left  after  sup- 
plying our  lower  wants.  We  give  to  God  our  weary  hours.  We  give 
to  God  our  unoccupied  hours.  When  joy  has  taken  what  it  needs,  and 
social  life  has  taken  what  it  needs,  and  business  has  taken  what  it 
needs,  then  what  is  left — the  barrenness  of  life,  as  it  were — we  give  to 
moral  influence  and  to  the  cause  of  God.  How  few  there  are  who  put 
theii'  concentrated  life  into  the  work  of  God,  and  bring  everything 
they  have — body  and  soul — to  bear  on  the  promotion  of  God's  work 
in  this  world  !  There  are  some  such  ;  and  what  a  mighty  power  they 
have  !     How  are  they  as  flames  in  the  woi-ld  ! 

Mild  and  gentle  working,  although  it  does  something,  does  it  in  a 
lower  range ;  does  it  gradually  ;  does  it  by  slow  accretions.  The 
power  which  brings  to  pass  rapid  results  ;  the  power  that  carries  up 
visibly  the  work  of  God;  the  power  that  promotes  morality,  that  re- 
claims the  intemperate,  that  inspires  energy  among  the  listless,  and  in- 
dustry among  those  who  are  self-indulgent,  that  purifies  the  morals, 
that  lifts  the  light  of  the  other  world  upon  this  world,  that  brings  men 
out  of  bondage  and  darkness  into  the  light  and  liberty  of  the  sons  of 
God — this  power  comes  from  a  much  higher  state  of  mind,  if  it  be 
successful,  than  that  which  we  give  to  our  secular  occupations.  We 
know  that  men  buckle  themselves  to  their  worldly  work  with  a  will, 
conscious  that  they  will  accomplish  in  proportion  as  they  bring  force 
to  bear.  But  in  spiritual  life  how  easy  yon  are !  What  a  light  pres- 
sure you  exert  to  bring  out  the  most  wondrous  results !  My  marvel, 
when  I  see  people  labor  in  this  direction,  is,  not  that  there  is  so  little 
done,  but  that  there  is  so  much  done.  By  the  blessing  of  God  much 
is  done  ;  for  God  gives  to  the  unworthy,  and  overpays  our  exertion. 
And  if  a  hundred  men  should  concentrate  the  strength  of  their  being 
for  short  periods  on  any  charity  or  cause  of  benevolence  in  this 
world,  who  can  measure  what  an  impetus  that  charity  or  cause  might 
receive  at  their  hands  !  There  is  no  estimating  what  results  may  be 
nchieved  where  spiritual  intensity  is  made  to  be  the  condition  of  vic- 
tory and  of  power. 

Ah !  it  is  not  till  we  are  brought  to  that  point  where  we  feel  our 
need  of  God,  that  we  know  how  to  say  "  Lord,  help  me  !"  We  say  it 
often,  ar^  do  not  say  it.  We  say  it  because  it  is  the  moisture,  as  it 
were,  the  dew,  that  is  upon  our  night  of  storm.    We  say  it  because 


INTENSITY  OF  SPIRIT.  291 

Labit  has  taught  us  to  say  it.  How  few  there  are,  all  of  whose  nature 
in  them  joins  together  and  sends  forth  that  victorious  sentence,  "  Lord, 
help  me !"  When  we  do  this,  then  God  comes.  Then,  when  we  have 
learned  the  secret  of  that  sentence,  the  heavens  open.  Then  the  denied 
gifts  are  granted.  Then  the  Spirit,  before  withheld,  comes  forth,  and 
our  joy  and  peace  flow  like  a  river. 

Christian  brethren,  is  not  this  the  very  sentence  which  we  should 
write  upon  the  door  of  the  new  year — "Lord  help  me?"  Is  not  this 
the  very  petition  which  we  should  lay  upon  our  heart,  and  upon  our 
conscience,  and  upon  all  the  soul — "Lord,  help  me"?  Is  not  this  that 
which  every  parent  should  see,  going  into  the  portals  of  his  dwelling 
to-day,  inscribed  there  by  him — "  Lord,  help  me"  ?  Is  not  this  the  very 
prayer  which  should  overlay  our  business  for  the  year — "Lord,  help 
me"  ?  Is  not  this  that  which,  if  we  stand  looking  down  into  the  dark- 
ness of  sickness  and  trouble,  should  be  to  us  as  Mount  Zion — "  Lord, 
help  me"?  Is  not  the  very  word  which  they  who  begin  a  Christian 
life  openly  and  avowedly  to-day,  and  ai'e  to  walk  through  all  the 
phases  of  Christian  experience  down  to  the  day  of  their  death,  should 
write  upon  their  shield — "  Lord,  help  me"  ?  And  when  we  rise,  by 
and  by,  with  the  great  multitude  that  have  washed  theii*  raiment  in 
blood,  and  made  it  white,  then  we  shall  stand  in  the  i:)resence  of  God, 
and  change  the  phrase  in  triumj)h,  saying,  "  The  Lord  hath  helped 
me." 

And  now.  Christian  brethren,  we  will,  after  the  blessing  is  pro- 
nounced, draw  near  to  the  symbols  which  represent  to  our  faith  that 
helpful  and  loving  Saviour;  and  I  invite  to  join  with  us  all  those  who 
feel  themselves  to  be  sinful,  who  feel  that  they  need  divine  help 
and  care,  and  who  are  willing  to  accept  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  their 
Saviour,  and  his  service  as  their  life.  I  invite  them,  without  reference 
to  any  doctrinal  distinction  or  church  connection,  on  this  simple  and 
personal  ground,  that  they  realize  their  sinfulness,  and  feel  their  need 
of  help,  and  are  M^illing  to  receive  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  their 
helper  and  Saviour.  For  this  is  the  table  of  the  Lord,  and  not  of  this 
church. 


PRAYER   BEFORE  THE   SERMON.* 

,  O  thou  that  hast  risen  from  the  dead,  and  art  gone  up  on  high,  Jesus,  our 
Saviour,  thou  that  art  equal  to  God  !  thou  hast  made  him  known  to  lis —  iu 
Ihee  we  have  found  life,  and  love,  and  faitli,  and  hope,  and  pardon;  and  in 
thee  we  desire,  from  day  to  day  to  live,  not  liaving  on  our  own  rightoous- 
ness,  but  that  whicli  is  of  faitli  l)y  theo.  We  bless  thee  for  the  experience  of 
days  gone  by.  We  tliaak  thee  for  all  the  knowledge  of  truth  which  has  been 
"immediatoly  following  the  reception  of  members  luto  the  Church. 


292  INTENSITY  OF  SPIRIT. 

made  known  to  us ;  for  all  the  hope  that  has  sprung  therefrom.  "We  thank 
thee  for  that  which  thou  hast  promised,  and  which  thou  art  fulfilling  to  thy 
people.  We  rejoice  that  thou  art  with  them  yet ;  and  that  thou  art  making 
prayer  indeed  a  power  with  God ;  and  that  parents  are  receiving  their  child- 
ren that  were  dead  spiritually,  to  life  again  ;  and  that  they  that  were  in  their 
graves  are  coming  forth  ;  and  that  thou  art  bringing  life  and  light  and  glory 
into  many  and  many  a  heart.  We  thank  thee  for  all  those  that  are  called, 
and  for  all  that  hear  the  voice  of  God  calling  to  them,  and  who  are  brought 
out  of  darkness  into  light,  and  out  of  winter  into  summer,  and  out  of  every 
worldliness  into  joy  and  heavenly-mindedness. 

We  thank  thee  that  so  many  this  morning  have  taken  upon  themselves 
the  name  of  the  gracious  Saviour.  May  they  have  his  Spirit  dwelling  per- 
petually in  them.  May  they  have,  as  an  immutable  possession,  the  treasures 
of  hope  and  faith  and  love.  And  we  pray,  O  Lord  our  God  !  that  in  all  their 
trials  and  temptations  and  crosses,  they  may  find  thee  ever  present,  and  thy 
promises,  which  are  Yea  and  Amen,  abundantly  fulfilled  to  them  all,  in  sick- 
ness and  in  health ;  in  labors  in  over  measure ;  in  heart-sickness  from  hope 
deferred.  Grant  that  they  may  still  find  that  near  to  thee,  everywhere,  is 
grace  in  which  is  might  and  succor  for  every  human  need.  And  we  pray 
that  they  may  never  be  discouraged.  Even  though  they  stumble  and  fall, 
may  they  rise  again.  Though  they  wander,  may  the  Shepherd  find  them, 
and  bring  them  back  to  the  fold.  And  we  pray,  O  Lord  our  God,  that  they 
may  rejoice  in  this  day,  and  in  this  hour. 

Bless,  we  pray  thee,  this  Church,  into  which  they  have  been  taken. 
May  it  grow  strong  not  only  by  numbers,  but  by  courage.  May  its  members 
be  as  lights  shining  into  the  darkness  around  about  them,  that  men,  seeing 
their  good  works,  may  glorify  their  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 

Wepcjy  that  thou  wilt  bleSs  all  our  households.  Bless  all  our  children. 
Bless  those  that  are  with  us,  and  those  that  are  scattered  far  away.  On  this 
morning  we  look  abroad  and  search  out  over  the  earth  for  those  that  are  near 
and  dear  to  us,  and  bring  them  in  the  arms  of  our  faith,  and  lay  them  before 
thee,  and  beseech  of  thee  that  thy  blessing  may  rest  upon  them. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  be  with  the  sick.  Be  with  all  that  are  broken- 
hearted. Be  with  all  that  sit  in  the  region  of  the  shadow  of  death.  Draw 
near  to  the  sons  of  want  and  distress. 

And  thou  that  art  the  God  of  the  whole  earth,  we  beseech  of  thee  that 
thou  wilt  begin  thy  work  of  benevolence,  and  of  mercy,  and  of  peace,  and  of 
goodness,  and  love,  upon  this  opening  of  the  year.  May  all  the  days  of 
this  year,  as  they  successively  run  out,  be  days  of  God's  blessing  and  good- 
ness. May  they  prepare  us  for  life  or  death  ;  and  may  we,  not  being  anxious, 
cast  our  burdens  on  the  Lord.  May  we  be  sustained  by  the  divine 
promises.  May  we  be  upheld  by  the  faith  and  hope  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 
And  as  our  days,  so  may  our  strength  be,  also. 

And  so  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  unto  us,  from  year  to  year,  to  walk 
leaning  upon  thee  more  and  more,  and  to  trust  in  thy  promises,  until  our 
time  of  departure  comes.  Then  may  we  find  our  home,  and  our  heaven,  and 
our  God,  and  at  last  ourselves. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise,  Father,  Son  and  Spirit.    Amen, 


XVIII. 

Man'S  Will  and  God's  Love. 


INVOCATION. 

Thou  source  of  all  goodness,  thou  secret  of  strength  and  power  mvisible, 
draw  near  and  breathe  life  upon  our  life,  and  cause  all  our  affections, 
cleansed  and  purified  from  the  earth,  to  rise  up  into  commerce  with  thine, 
that  we  may  be  united  with  thee ;  that  we  may  rest  with  thee ;  that  we  may 
find  our  completion  in  thee.  Bless  to  us  the  reading  of  thy  word,  our  medi- 
tation upon  it,  and  all  instruction  derived  from  it.  Bless  the  fellowship  of 
song,  and  our  communion  thereby  with  thee  and  with  each  other.  Bless  us 
as  we  seek  thee  in  prayer.  May  we  find  the  way  open,  and  thy  hand  draw- 
ing us  already  to  the  throne  of  grace.  And  so  may  the  service  of  the  day, 
whether  here  or  at  home,  or  any  where,  be  such  as  shall  please  thee  and 
profit  us.    For  Christ's  sake.    Amen. 

18 


MAI'S  ¥ILL  AND  GOD'S  LOYE. 


"For  without  me  you  can  do  nothing.— John.  xv.  5. 


This  is  only  saying  again  to  the  disciples,  concerning  their  relation 
to  their  Lord  and  Master,  what  had  been  said  throughout  the  economy 
of  revelation  in  respect  to  man  and  his  relations  to  God.  It  was  the  an- 
nunciation of  that  dependence  which  is  a  part  of  the  divine  idea  of  cre- 
ation, and  one  of  the  sweetest  and  most  delightful  of  all  the  facts  which 
we  can  contemplate  in  that  relation  which  subsists  between  us  and  our 
God.  And  yet,  there  is  no  other  truth  that  has  been  more  abused.  No 
other  truth,  capable  of  carrying  so  much  consolation,  has  carried  so 
little — at  any  rate  to  some  minds,  and  undei*  certain  circumstances — as 
this,  of  the  absolute  dependence  of  man  upon  God. 

There  have  been  two  capital  mistakes  generally  made  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  Scripture  language ;  the  first,  giving  to  the  language  of 
the  affections  and  of  the  domestic  relations  the  sense  of  political  and 
governmental  terras  ;  taking  words  out  of  their  place  and  relationship 
as  words  of  the  heart,  and  making  them  words  interpreted  by  the 
analogies  of  civil  polity — winch  is  very  difierent.  And  for  reasons  that 
I  will  show,  this  has  been  much  done  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Bible, 
and  with  very  great  mischief  The  second  trouble  has  arisen  in  inter- 
pretation by  giving  a  rigidly  philosophical  meaning  to  terms  which. 
belong  to  the  imagination  and  to  the  emotions.  In  this  way,  at  one 
lime  and  another,  the  most  extraordinary  propositions  have  been  de- 
duced, and  systems  built.  But  far  worse,  the  most  attractive  and 
nourishing  of  all  truths  have  been  rendered  unattractive,  and  some- 
times even  re|Hilsive,  by  such  a  presentation  as  obscures  the  whole 
spirit  and  temper  of  them. 

We  will  take,  as  an  eminent  illustration,  this  truth  of  man's  depeixd- 
ence  upon  God,  which,  as  it  was  preached  into  the  ear  of  the  disciples 
of  Christ,  was  full  of  cheer  and  of  comfort.  It  was  the  word  of 
love.  It  touched  the  spirit  of  love  and  confidence.  It  tended  to  ex- 
cite, in  the  instances  which  we  have  quoted,  gladness  and  gratitude.  It 

SundatMokxing,  Jan.  8. 1871.    Lesson  :  1  Pet.  I.  3-25.    Hymns  (Plymoulh  Collection)- 
NOS.  266,  1241,  326a. 


294  MAN'S  WILL  AND  GOD'S  LOVE. 

made  men  strong  in  that  day.  It  helped  them  to  lean  against  tho 
power  of  the  Almighty.  And  yet,  so  has  man's  dependence  upon 
God  often  been  preached  since  that  day  that  it  has  made  men  weak, 
helpless,  and  sometimes  even  skeptical. 

It  is  the  universal  impression  (although  the  religiousness  of  it  es- 
capes many),  it  is  the  sentiment  of  humanity,  that  in  this  sphere  man  is 
weak — weak  in  judgment,  and  in  executive  force,  and  in  comprehension, 
and  in  fore-sightedness  ;  and  that  when  he  has  done  his  best,  he  still 
needs  a  providence.  And  he  has  a  providence.  For  when  men  are 
brought  to  exigencies,  they  frequently  betray  a  latent  belief  in  the 
overruling  providence  and  presence  of  God,  and  their  dependence  up- 
on it,  which  they  at  other  times  for  speculative  reasons  deny.  Every- 
one has  exigencies  of  life  when  he  ardently  longs  to  lean  back  upon  the 
divine  presence  and  the  divine  power.  The  excitement  of  a  man's  fac- 
ulties for  ordinary  purposes,  and  for  ordinary  occasions,  may  be  a  suf- 
ficient guidance  and  a  sufficient  light ;  but  whenever  he  comes  to  new 
and  perilous  paths,  and  whenever  great  interests  are  at  stake,  it  is  ut- 
terly inadequate. 

In  such  exigencies,  they  that  are  the  least  accustomed  to  confess 
the  divine  providence  and  presence  are  utterly  changed  in  this  respect. 
In  the  presence  of  death,  in  the  presence  of  great  disastei',  in  the  pres- 
ence of  quaking  fears,  they  turn  away  from  conscious  weakness,  and 
from  the  weakness  of  men,  and  from  all  human  counselors,  and  feel 
that  they  need  the  wisdom  and  the  overruling  power  of  that  God  who 
is  the  father  of  us  all.  So  that  taking  the  race  throughout,  there  is  no 
sentiment  that  breaks  out  and  betrays  itself  more  frequently  in  periods 
of  necessity  than  this,  that  man  does  need  to  look  up  to  God  and  to 
de^jend  upon  him. 

The  thing  itself,  too,  is  majestically  beautifuk  Tliere  is  nothing  on 
earth  more  beautiful  than  the  sight  of  a  father  in  the  midst  of  his  help- 
less children  in  the  household  using  his  experience,  and  skill,  and  life, 
and  power,  to  guard  them ;  to  stimulate  them  ;  to  teach  them  how  to 
help  themselves  ;  to  lead  them  up  to  strength  and  to  a  right  manhood. 

But  this  is  the  analogy.  Our  dependence  upon  God  includes  in  it 
all  that  the  parental  relation  on  earth  does,  and  much  more.  It  adds 
two  elements  which  make  it  richer  and  more  beautiful.  It  is  the  sov- 
ereignty of  a  Father  that  is  essentially  taught  throughout  the  Bible,  Old 
Testament  and  New.  It  is  the  supremacy  of  love,  the  wisdom  of  love, 
the  purity  of  love,  the  requisitions  of  love,  the  government  of  love — and 
not  less  because  it  implies  pain  as  well  as  pleasure. 

The  universality  of  this  divine  overruling  thought  and  care,  and 
its  continuity  through  ages,  adds  grandeur  to  its  beauty.  There  can- 
not be  two  pictures  conceived  more  magnificent  than  that  of  love 


MAN'S  WILL  AND  GOD'S  LOVE.  295 

militant  through  all  time,  and  that  of  love  triumphant  through  all 
eternity. 

Now,  that  men  should  rejoice  that  there  is  an  intelligent  govern- 
ment above  them,  that  they  may  lean  upon  it,  that  they  may  renew 
their  strength  in  this  inexhaustible  strength  of  God,  that  they  may 
quicken  their  own  inspirations,  and  have  something  which  mere 
natural  law  does  not  give  them  ;  that  men  should  find  satisfaction 
in  the  truth  that  some  things  are  lent  to  them  from  God's  originating 
power — that  men  should  learn  to  derive  great  consolation  from  the 
contemplation  of  this  fact,  is  not  strange.  It  would  seem  almost 
inevitable.  And  where  this  truth  is  left  to  its  simple  spiritual  inter 
pretation,  this  is  the  result,  and  it  gives  comfort  and  strength. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  this  doctrine  of  God's  relation  to  man  has 
been  so  stated,  and  still  is  so  taught  (though  not  so  generally  as 
hitherto)  that  hardly  any  other  truth  has  seemed  so  disagreeable  to 
many  persons  as  that  of  the  absolute  dependence  of  man  upon  God. 
It  has  been  repulsive.     Men  have  repelled  and  contested  it. 

It  may  serve  to  clear  up  the  doctrine  itself,  and  to  bring  it  into  its 
true  light  and  beauty  and  power,  if  we  attempt  to  show  what  are  some 
of  the  reasons  why  this  simple  truth  has  in  many  ages  been  generally 
offensive,  and  why  in  the  minds  of  many  persons  it  still  continues  to 
be  so. 

1.  The  doctrine  of  man's  dependence  upon  God  has  been  so  pre- 
sented as  to  conflict  with  men's  observations,  and  with  their  own 
personal  consciousness.  For,  to  state  that  we  are  absolutely  dependent 
upon  God,  with  the  qualifications  which  frequently  have  attached  to 
this  statement,  seems  to  men  a  destruction  of  their  freedom  ;  a  destruc- 
tion of  the  liberty  of  their  will ;  a  destruction  of  all  power  of  rational 
conduct.  If  they  can  be  really  nothing  of  themselves ;  if  they  ai-e 
not  separate  organizations,  with  the  power  of  thoughi,  and  with  the 
power  of  will,  acting,  to  be  sure,  within  certain  narrow  limits,  but 
acting  independently  within  those  limits,  then  in  what  sense  are  they 
free,  more  than  particles  of  matter,  which  are  propelled  by  other  par- 
ticles of  matter  ?  Any  such  dependence  of  man  upon  God  as  makes 
God's  will  the  absolute  and  only  cause  of  every  thought  and  every 
feeling  in  man,  cannot  be  so  explained  but  that  men  will  say,  "Then 
we  are  nothing.  God  is  the  only  thinker ;  the  only  doer ;  the  only 
operative  force.     If  it  is  all  God,  in  what  respect  can  it  be  man  ?  " 

Of  nothing,  on  the  whole,  are  men  more  tenacious  than  of  their 
own  freedom.  They  believe  that  freedom  belongs  to  them,  within  given 
limited  spheres.  And  they  glory  in  it,  and  are  jealous  of  it.  It  is 
the  mainspring  of  government,  and  of  whatever  pertains  to  the  inter- 
course of  man  with  man.     And  to  affirm  any  such  doctrine  of  depend- 


29 G  MAN' 8  WILL  AND  GOD'S  LOVE. 

ence  as  takes  away  from  man  his  conscious  and  plenary  liberty,  is  to 
offend  Lis  moral  consciousness,  and  to  contradict  all  his  experience 
and  observation  of  men.  So  to  put  God's  supremacy  as  to  make  that 
all,  is  to  destroy  man's  individuality,  and  is  an  unmixed  evil. 

To  teach,  on  the  other  hand,  that  God's  supremacy  and  jjower,  and 
man's  dependence  upon  it,  are  like  the  dependence  of  the  child  upon 
the  parent,  and  the  parent's  supremacy  and  power  ;  to  teach,  in  othei* 
words,  that  God  is  the  fountain  and  perennial  cause  of  man's  indi- 
viduality and  separateness,  and  of  the  freedom  of  his  understanding, 
of  his  choice,  and  of  his  action  ;  to  teach  that  man  is  dependent  upon 
God  for  liberty  and  personality,  is  not  oflfensive  to  the  moral  sense, 
nor  to  the  judgment.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  to  teach  us  that  our  free 
agency  is  guaranteed  by  the  veiy  course  of  creation,  and  that  God 
maintains  in  mankind  that  estate  of  liberty  which  he  instituted,  and 
instituted  for  the  wisest  purposes — government  in  civil  society,  and  in 
the  great  moral  realm  of  the  iiniverse. 

He,  then,  who  so  preaches  man's  dependence  upon  God  as  to  de- 
stroy the  independence  of  man,  and  deny  his  capability  of  doing  any- 
thing of  himself,  mistakes  the  doctrine,  and  instead  of  making  it  an 
instrument  of  power,  makes  it  a  stumbling-block  and  an  offense. 

2.  Man's  dependence  upon  God  has  been  so  taught — and  mjstaught 
— as  to  conflict  with  the  sense  of  justice  in  men.  That  man  can  do 
nothing  without  God  has  been  taught ;  and  in  a  large  way  of  using  that 
phr(ise  there  is  a  truth  in  it.  The  globe  itself  would  not  exist  if  it 
were  not  for  the  continued  operation  of  the  divine  will.  Every  man 
on  the  globe  is  dependent  for  liberty  of  life  upon  the  divine  will.  And 
all  those  second  causes  which  are  operating  to  produce  vitality  and 
reason  and  choice,  go  back  to  that  sovereign  will,  which  holds  them  in 
existence.  And  so,  in  that  large  sense,  we  are  remotely  dependent  upon 
God  for  the  existence  of  all  those  instrumentalities  by  which  we  are 
free.  But  to  teach  our  dependence  upon  God  so  directly  as  to  make 
it  appear  that  we  cannot  employ  our  reason  nor  our  will  as  separable 
from  God's,  and  yet,  that  we  are  condemnable  for  not  doing  what  no 
power  was  given  to  men  to  do,  or  for  what  we  do  by  a  power  super- 
eminent  over  ours — this  confounds  every  notion  of  justice  and  of  equity 
which  God  has  implanted  in  man. 

No  governor,  be  he  named  from  names  above  or  from  names  be- 
neath, and  no  ruler,  be  he  omniscient  and  omnipotent,  or  be  he  finite, 
has  the  right  to  require  of  a  man  more  than  he  gives  him  the  personal 
power  to  perform.  And  the  power  must  be  inherent  in  the  individual. 
If  a  man  is  so  dependent  upon  God  for  power  that  he  can  do  nothing 
of  himself,  then  he  is  responsible  for  nothing.  If  he  is  in  such  a  sense 
dependent  upon  God  that  it  is  the  divine  impulsion  that  puts  him  on 


MAN'S  WILL  AND  GOD'S  LOVE.  297 

to  what  he  does,  then  there  can  be  no  .responsibility  on  his  part  for 
what  he  does.  If  a  man  is  not  independent  in  the  use  of  his  faculties, 
if  he  is  not  capable  of  originating  his  own  choices  and  acting  accord- 
ing to  his  own  personal  will,  then  he  is  not  in  a  condition  to  assume 
the  responsibility  of  his  conduct. 

Though  this  mistaught  doctrine  may  have  in  its  statement  a  subtle  ■' - 
line  of  truth,  its  general  effect  is  to  bring  men  into  collision  with  the  fun- 
damental conceptions  of  moral  government.  And  yet,  there  have  been 
times  when  men  have  been  tied  by  this  teaching  of  dependence.  They 
have  been  taught  that  they  could  neither  think  nor  act  nor  do  anything 
except  by  the  divine  inspiration  ;  and  that  that  divine  inspiration  was 
itself  dependent  upon  God's  own  private  will  and  counsel ;  and  that 
that  will  and  counsel  men  could  not  change.  They  have  been  taught 
that  God  did  what  pleased  him  ;  and  that  no  man  could  tui-n  him  or 
modify  him  ;  and  yet  they  have  been  taught  that  men  were  responsible 
both  for  the  things  which  they  did  do,  and  for  the  things  which  they 
did  not  do. 

This  is  simply  a  net  of  abominations.  It  violates  every  fundamental 
instinct  and  every  form  of  teaching  and  doctrine,  I  ^\■ill  not  say  of  our 
own  houseliolds,  but  of  Scripture  itself. 

3.  This  doctrine  of  man's  dependence  upon  God  has  been  so  taught,  -^ 
frequently,  as  to  seem  to  erect  an  Oriental  despotism.  It  has  been  so 
taught  as  to  lift  up  a  tyrannical  Deity,  and  not  a  Father,  into  sovereignty. 
It  has  been  boldly  taught  that  God  had  a  right  to  make  men  in  any 
way ;  and  that  having  made  them,  he  had  a  right  to  impose  upon  them 
any  conditions  which  he  chose,  and  that  he  had  a  right  to  do  this  with- 
out any  other  consideration  than  his  own  private  thought  and  will.  It 
has  been  taught  that  neither  v/as  man  consulted,  nor  was  there  any 
foresight  taken  of  what  his  condition  would  be  ;  that  the  whole  origi- 
nating and  creating  thought  of  God  was  infinite  and  separate,  and  that 
it  was  absolutely  sovereign.  He  taking  counsel  of  none. 

There  may  be  an  element  of  truth  in  this,  as  an  element  of  neces- 
sity ;  but  the  impression  produced  by  such  teaching  is,  that  God  is  to 
the  last  degree  despotic,  unsympathetic,  arbitrary,  and,  finally,  unjust. 
For,  virtually  it  is  a  teaching  which  recognizes  the  right  of  absolute 
power  to  be  cruel  or  despotic.  You  cannot  so  interpret  this  doctrine,  if 
you  represent  it  in  that  way,  but  that  it  will  convey  the  idea  that  God 
is  God  simply  because  he  is  wiser  than  all  others,  and  because  he  is 
stronger  than  all  others  ;  and  that  because  he  happens  to  have  priority 
of  place  and  position,  he  has  a  right  to  make  just  what  he  pleases,  and 
govern  it  just  as  he  pleases. 

If  this  notion  is  the  correct  one  in  respect  to  God,  why  may  not 
all  other  oeings  in  the  lower  spheres  assume  just  the  same  authority 
for  themselYCS  as  fai-  as  their  power  goes  ? 


298  MAN'S  WILL  A2^D  GOD'S  LO YE. 

i 
If  might  makes  right  in  heaven,  why  does  not  might  make  right  in 
Prussia,  in  Arabia,  in  Jerusalem,  in  Athens,  in  Rome,  anywhere '?  It 
is  destructive  of  the  very  foundation-element  of  morality,  and  it  con- 
founds all  ideas  of  justice  and  equity  and  mercy.  For,  if  there  be  one 
thing  that  is  more  Christian  than  another,  if  there  be  one  truth  that 
/  grew  all  the  way  through  the  Bible,  taking  larger  and  larger  propor- 
'  tions,  and  clearer  and  clearer  developments,  it  is  the  infinite  obligation 
I  of  gi-eatness  and  of  wisdom  and  of  goodness  to  things  inferior  to 
them.  What  is  the  law  that  Christ  himself  taught,  but  this,  that  The 
greatest  shall  serve  the  least  ?  They  that  were  the  "  servants  of  all," 
were  the  chief  men  among  the  disciples.  Christ  announced  this 
doctrine,  not  simply  as  obligatory  upon  men,  but  also  as  defining  his 
own  character.  When  he  girded  himself  with  a  towel,  and  washed 
the  disciples'  feet,  he  said  to  them,  "Your  Lord  and  Master  hath  done 
this  to  teach  you  that  ye  ought  always  to  serve  one  another."  In  other 
words,  he  brought  down  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  existence,  the  law 
that  God  himself  acts  under,  and  made  it  the  law  of  the  human  sphere. 
That  is  to  say,  he  brought  out  the  truth,  and  not  the  Oriental,  despotic 
doctrine  that  because  God  was  the  best  thinker,  and  was  high  up  above 
anybody's  reach,  and  had  infinite  power,  and  had  out-stretching  arms 
of  authority,  and  was  sovereign,  therefore  he  had  a  right  to  do  what  he 
pleased,  and  to  say,  "  Who  art  thou  ?  I  follow  the  counsels  of  my  own 
will;  and  no  man  shall  gainsay  my  right  to  do  it."  Not  that,  but  this, 
was  the  Christian  doctrine  as  announced  from  the  lips  of  Christ  him- 
self: "I,  your  Lord  and  Master,  being  the  greatest  of  all,  have  set  you 
the  example  of  obligation  to  do  the  lowest  services  possible,  even  unto 
the  least  worthy." 

Greatness  is  beholden  to  littleness.  Goodness  owes  allegiance  of 
love  to  ungoodness.  Power  is  the  natural  protector  of  weakness.  El- 
evation takes  care  of  inferiority,  from  the  very  topmost  heaven.  That 
is  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ. 

And  yet,  tempted  of  the  devil,  men  have  undertaken  so  to  teach 
our  dependence  upon  God  as  to  reverse  this  whole  view,  and  to  con- 
vey the  idea  that  we  are  dependent  upon  God  because  he  is  the  om- 
nivorous praise-gatherer  of  the  universe.  They  have  made  him  out  to 
be  a  God  who,  having  all  power,  and  being  unlimited  in  wisdom,  as 
well  as  in  might,  lifted  himself  high  above  men,  and  administered  the 
afiairs  of  the  universe  without  foresight  of  virtue  or  vice,  and  without 
reference  to  obedience  or  disobedience.  And  the  result  of  this  teach- 
ing has  been  to  leave,  and  it  always  has  left,  on  the  popular  mind,  the 
impression  that  there  inhered  in  God,  by  reason  of  his  omnipotence  and 
omniscience,  a  right  which  we  deny  to  earthly  monarchs,  to  earthly 
parents,  to  everybody  on  earth — the  right  to  act  from  selfish  motives, 


MAN'S  WILL  AND  GOD'S  LOVE.  299 

instead  of  acting  from  a  consideration  sympathetic,  sweet,  generous, 
just,  magnanimous,  glorious,  of  the  wants  and  wishes  of  the  whole 
sentient  and  suiFering  universe  of  his  creatures. 

Any  view,  then,  of  our  dependence  upon  God,  which  is  so  put  as  to 
make  men  feel  that  because  God  is  supreme  in  heaven  he  has  a  right 
to  do  what  he  j^leases,  is  violative,  not  only  of  the  intuitions  of  man- 
hood, but  also  of  the  revelations  of  truth  in  the  Word  of  God.  And 
nowhere  more  than  in  the  teachings  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  God 
rev^ealed  in  the  plenitude  of  parental  love.  Not  thai  it  was  there  first 
revealed ;  for  the  Old  Testament  had  said  substantially  tlie  same  things. 

"  Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so  the  Lord  pitieth  them  that  fear 
him.    For  he  knoweth  our  frame  ;  he  remembereth  that  we  are  dust." 

The  Old  Testament  is  full,  I  had  almost  said,  of  cradle  songs  of 
consolation  and  of  pleasure.  There  were  times  when  God  assumed  an 
almost  fierce  vindication  of  his  sovereign,  magisterial  and  kingly  at- 
tributes ;  but  there  were  other  times  in  which  he  interpreted  them,  as 
it  were.  He  assumed  them  for  paternal  purposes.  And  the  heart  of 
God,  as  represented  in  the  Old  Testament,  or  the  New,  is  a  heart  of 
love.  And  his  consideration  of  man  has  never  been  set  forth  as  a 
consideration  simply  for  the  sake  of  his  own  private  self,  of  his  own 
pleasure,  of  iiis  own  enjoyment. 

I  said  that  the  ordinary  mode — or  rather  the  exti-aordinary  mode 
— which  has  prevailed  at  certain  times  of  teaching  man's  dependence 
upon  God,  subverts  the  fundamental  ideas  of  morality.  It  does.  You 
never  will  clear  the  world  of  tyrants  as  long  as  you  worship  a  tyrant 
on  the  throne  of  the  universe.  You  never  can  put  down  ecclesiastical 
oppression,  you  never  can  put  down  oligarchies,  you  never  can  put 
down  the  despotism  of  man  over  man,  whether  by  classes  or  individu- 
als, so  long  as  men  are  taught  that  mere  strength  in  God  gives  him  the 
right  to  govern  men.  He  has  the  right  to  govern  men;  but  it  is  be- 
cause he  is  better,  because  he  is  sweeter,  because  he  is  wiser  than 
any  other  creature  in  the  universe.  It  is  because  he  is  so  ab- 
solutely unselfish.  When  you  go  back  and  look  into  the  divine 
,  nature,  does  it  seem  to  you  that  God  has  a  right  to  make  meia 
as  he  will?  Yes,  he  has  that  right,  if  his  will  is  always  to  make  them 
benevolently — and  it  is.  He  has  the  right  inhering  in  benevolence. 
And  has  he  not  a  right  to  govern  them  as  lie  will  ?  Yes,  if  his  will  is 
always  to  govern  them  benevolently — and  it  is.  He  has  that  right, 
too,  inhering  in  benevolence.  There  are  nowhere  such  obligations  of 
generosity  and  kindness  and  mercy  as  those  which  God  takes  upon  him- 
self. Because  he  is  God,  he  is  under  obligation  to  everything  that  he 
has  brought  into  creation  to  be  just,  to  be  true,  and  to  be  full  of  love 
toward  it. 


300  MAIf'S  WILL  AND  OOD'8  LOVE. 

Now,  dependence  upon  such  a  God  as  that,  whose  will  is  love, 
whose  purpose  is  love,  whose  life  is  love,  and  whose  aims  through  ages 
and  cycles  of  ages  are  final  rectitude  and  elevation  and  grandeur  of 
being,  can  never  be  repulsive — can  never  be  other  than  attractive  to 
any  free,  rational,  right-minded  man. 

4.  This  leads  me  one  step  further ;  namely,  to  state  that  the  doctrine 
of  dependence  upon  God  has  offended  the  moral  consciousness  of  men 
because  it  is  implied  that  Go'd's  government  over  the  world  is  mo- 
narchical, and  not  personal  and  paternal.  And  here  I  am  met  with  a 
view  which  is  a  perplexing  one ;  namely,  that  we  derived  this  notion 
of  God  as  a  monarch,  and  king,  and  ruler,  and  governor,  from  the  ex- 
press language  of  Scripture  itself  That  is,  "The  Bible,"  men  say, 
/■  "  ascribes  to  God  these  characters ;  and  if  it  be  true,  they  must  belong 
to  him."  I  do  not  deny  that  this  is  the  fact ;  but  I  affirm  that  the 
modern  idea  of  sovereignty  is  unscriptural.  Men  have  taken  these 
terms  and  applied  them  to  God  after  history  has  emptied  them  of  one 
meaning,  and  filled  them  with  another  and  different  one.  They  cling 
to  the  words,  and  use  them  in  the  same  way  that  they  were  used  in  the 
far  off  historical  period,  though  they  convey  an  essentially  different 
idea  to  those  who  hear  them  now  frora  that  which  they  conveyed  to 
those  who  heard  them  then.  For  monarchs  originally  grew  out  of  the 
paternal  relation.  First  was  the  family ;  and  it  is  a  historical  fact  that 
the  father  was  simply  the  head  of  the  household.  And  as  his  children 
grew  up  and  married,  he  still  continued  the  head  of  the  little  group  of 
families  that  they  formed,  and  so  became  a  patriarch.  And  still,  as  the 
circle  widened,  he  sustained  to  the  cluster  of  families  about  him  the 
same  relation  which  he  sustained  to  his  own  household  ;  namely,  the 
personal  and  parental  relations,  although  he  was  chief  and  ruler.  That 
is  the  mode  of  government  among  the  Sheiks  and  the  tribes  of  Asia, 
and  of  most  of  the  nomadic  nations  of  to-day.  It  is  a  personal,  though 
a  kingly  government.  This  was  the  historic  origin  of  the  title  of  king, 
and  for  a  long  time  it  conveyed  to  men  the  highest  conception  of 
fatherhood.  And  so  the  man  that  was  at  the  head  of  a  community  or 
a  tribe  was  the  chief  He  was  the  father.  And  it  was  during  that 
period  when  the  world  was  still  under  the  influence  of  the  idea  that  a 
king  was  the  highest  type  of  the  paternal  relation,  that  the  monarchic 
terms  of  the  Bible  came  into  vogue. 

They  came  into  vogue  when  to  be  a  king  was  not  only  to  be  a 
father,  but  to  be  a  most  resplendent  development  of  fiitherhood,  and 
when  they  conveyed  to  those  who  first  received  thciu,  iiot  the  idea 
which  king  conveys  to  us  in  modern  days,  nor  the  idea  which  that 
word  conveyed  to  those  who  lived  in  mediaeval  times,  but  the  ancient 
notion  of  a  glorified  father,  of  an  ennobled  father,  of  an  enriched  father, 


MAN'S  WILL  AND  GOD'S  LOVE.  3Ul 

transcendently  wise  and  good  and  merciful  father.  I  do  not 
doubt  that  in  all  the  early  periods  of  revelation,  when  God  was  set 
forth  as  a  mighty  King,  the  Avord  km(/  was  invested  with  all  the  ele- 
ments with  which  the  beloved  father  of  a  household  is  now  invested. 
It  did  not  convey  the  idea  of  a  dynastic,  impersonal  being. 

But  for  three  thousand  years,  monarchy  has  been  a  thing  wholly 
different  from  fatherhood.  I  know  that  monarchs  yet  say  that  they 
are  the  fathers  of  their  people ;  but  it  is  all  a  pretence.  They  are  fathers 
of  their  people  in  the  same  way  that  those  men  are  fishermen  who 
are  called  fishermen  at  Rome,  but  who  certainly  bear  as  little  resem- 
blance to  the  fishermen  of  Galilee  as  can  be  conceived  of,  in  ecclesiasti- 
cal ichthyology.  For  the  last  three  thousand  years  monarchy  has 
been  odious.  It  has  lived  away  from  its  origin.  It  lias,  by  circum- 
stances, been  transmuted  into  a  thing  very  different  from  what  it  was 
in  early  times,  not  only,  but  the  associations  connected  with  it  have 
entirely  changed.  So  that  when  a  man  has  been  spoken  of  as  a 
monarch,  it  has  long  ceased  to  convey  to  the  minds  of  the  hearers  the 
same  conception  which  it  did  in  ancient  times. 

A  monarch  in  early  days  bore  personal  relations  to  the  people  under 
his  government;  but  in  later  periods  a  monarch  is  a  mere  abstraction. 
Not  one  in  ten  thousand  ever  sees  him.  When  kings  were  first  made 
and  spoken  of  there  was  not  a  member  of  a  tribe  that  did  not  see  his 
king  once  or  twice  every  day,  perhaps.  Then  a  king  was  the  chief  in  a 
small  community,  and  was  perpetually  held  in  reverence  by  his  sub- 
jects, as  a  father  is  by  his  children.  And  as  far  down  as  the  time  of 
Solomon  the  king  was  among  his  people,  and  was  looked  up  to  by 
men  as  their  highest  representative ;  as  the  noblest  personage  among 
them ;  as  a  father  in  their  midst. 

A  parental  government  is  one  in  which  the  parent  is  present  in 
sympathetic  relations.  A  monarchical  government  is  one  in  which 
the  monarch  is  not  present  excej)t  in  imagination,  or  through  agents. 
A  parental  government  is  the  government  of  one  who  acts  directly  on 
the  minds  of  those  under  his  sway.  A  monarchical  government  is  a 
government  in  which  the  monarch  acts  indirectly  through  his  decrees, 
or  by  means  of  a  system  of  laws  and  institutions.  Therefore,  although 
kingship  grew  out  of  fatherhood,  it  outgrew  it,  and  left  far  behind  the 
divine  original  conception  of  a  king.  So  that  now  a  king  is  a  mere 
abstract  personage,  set  up  to  represent  certain  authorities  in  the  state. 
The  Governor  of  New  York  is  seen  by  very  few  of  the  people  of  New 
York.  He  is  nothing  to  them  personally.  He  is  so  for  divested  of 
the  element  of  personality  that  it  is  his  boast  and  pride  to  say,  "  I.  do 
not  allow  myself  to  act  for  the  public  good  Avith  any  consideration  of 
my  own  feelings."     To  be  a  king  now,  means  to  be — if  a  tyrant,  one 


302  MAN'S  WILL  AND  GOD'S  LOVE. 

who  says,  "I  act  my  o^yn  will  because  it  is  my  own  will,  and  my  agents 
perform  my  bidding  for  my  benefit ";  or  if  a  tolerable  monarch,  it  is  to 
be  so  abstract  as  to  be  able  to  say,  "  I  never  take  counsel  of  my  own 
judgment.  I  ask  law  what  I  shall  do;  I  ask  institutions  what  I  shall 
do ;  I  ask  customs  what  I  shall  do  ;  I  ask  precedents  what  I  shall  do." 
But  the  original  conception  of  a  king  was  that  of  a  father  who  did 
not  ask  laws,  nor  institutions,  nor  customs,  nor  precedents,  but  his 
own  best  judgment,  controlled  by  love,  what  he  should  do ;  and  he 
acted  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  heart  toward  his  subjects,  as  a 
father  does  toward  his  children,  for  their  welfare. 

In  this  insidious  way,  by  this  philosophical  gradation  from  period  to 
period,  there  came  this  change  over  the  governments  of  the  world. 
The  fiitherhood  of  the  old  king  was  splendid  ;  but  that  has  passed  away, 
and  nothing  is  left  but  a  selfish  tyi'ant,  or  the  abstraction  of  a  monarch. 
And  now  to  say  that  God  is  a  monarch,  is  to  take  him  out  of  personal 
relations  to  men,  and  to  make  his  system  a  system  of  laws  and  institu- 
tions, and  not  of  sympathetic  influences.  We  never  shall  go  back  to 
the  spirit  of  Christ,  and  we  never  shall  go  back  to  the  spirit  of  the 
old  Hebrew  revelation,  until  we  shall  have  formed  such  a  conception 
of  the  divine  government  as  to  make  God  personal,  and  to  make  his 
laws  simply  the  revelation  of  his  thoughts,  his  feelings,  and  his  indi- 
vidual will.  The  arbitrary  monarchical  notions  which  exist  to-day 
stand  right  in  the  way  of  a  correct  understanding  of  the  parental 
government  of  God.     Instead  of  helping,  they  hinder. 

Mankind  have  been  growing  away  from  monarchy  toward  a  nobler 
conception  of  government.  They  grew  into  monarchy  from  the 
patriarchal  state,  which  had  much  in  it  that  was  beautiful  and 
glorious.  It  was  perverted  little  by  little.  And  what  they  have 
sufl^ered  has  driven  them  away  from  monarchy,  till  now  nothing  is  so 
little  likely  to  excite  a  response  in  the  bosoms  of  the  multitudes  of  this 
world  as  to  call  God,  King.  For  kings  to-day  are  at  a  discount.  Here 
and  there  remains  the  uncurbed,  unrestrained  sovereignty  of  a  king ; 
but  in  the  most  civilized  nations  kings  are  held  in  by  the  authority  of 
the  people,  and  are  permitted  to  be  kings  only  just  so  far  as  folks 
choose  to  have  them.  Once  they  stood  from  head  to  foot  every  inch 
kings  ;  but  little  by  little  they  found  themselves,  first  knee-deep,  and 
then  thigh-deep,  and  then  shoidder-deep  in  laws,  until  now  there  is 
only  just  a  face  visible,  with  a  crown  on  it;  and  all  around  are  the  laws 
of  the  people.  It  is  so  in  England,  to-day.  The  king  or  queen  of  Eng- 
land is  nothing.  The  great  people  are  everything.  And,  after  all,  the 
monarchy  which  we  saw  in  France  was  but  a  sham — a  mere  paste- 
board thing  held  together  by  physical  force,  and  not  by  moral  force, 
nor  even  by  commercial  cohesion.  And  in  Italy  to-day,  Emanuel  could 


MAN'S  WILL  AND  GOD'S  LOVE.  303 

not  reign  an  hour  except  by  the  consent  of  his  people.  And  Austria 
has  lost  her  power  to  be  an  empire,  because  the  kingly  element  has  so 
far  died  out  of  her  people  that  she  is  obliged  to  fall  back  on  the  people, 
or  the  popular  element.  There  is  growing  up  against  royalty  the  power 
of  the  household,  and  the  power  of  the  communities  which  are  made 
up  of  households ;  and  kings,  despite  the  separateness  which  ages  of 
power  and  privilege  had  given  them,  are  being  brought  down  nearer 
and  nearer  to  the  great  common  people.  They  are  in  these  days  being 
brought  down  from  the  despotism  of  abstract  laws  and  institutions, 
into  a  nearer  sympathy  with  the  mass  of  men  and  women  of  society. 
Things  are  working  back  again,  after  the  long  mediaeval  captivity. 

But  the  meaning  of  the  word  King  has  grown  into  unpopu- 
larity through  centuries  of  abuse  of  the  kingly  function.  Now, 
under  such  cii-cumstances,  to  preach  that  conception  of  the  char- 
acter of  God,  and  of  the  temper  of  God,  which  prevailed  in  mediaival 
times  ;  to  preach  God  as  an  absolute  sovereign,  and  as  having  rights 
quite  independent  of  the  rights  of  his  subjects — what  a  perversion  of 
the  truth  it  is!  Neither  the  Old  Testament  nor  the  New  has  anything 
in  it  to  that  effect.  The  same  terms  have  been  employed  to  represent 
the  idea  of  fatherly  kingship  as  it  existed  in  ancient  times,  and  of 
monarchy  as  it  has  existed  in  the  middle  and  later  periods  of  the  world, 
and  those  terms  used  to  describe  God's  relations  to  men :  thus  has  arisen 
a  wi'ong  conception,  because  those  terms  at  first  conveyed  different 
meanings  from  those  which  they  have  conveyed  since. 

5.  Our  God  must  embody  the  highest  elements  of  character  which 
have  been  wrought  out  in  human  experience,  or  else  it  will  be  found 
quite  in  vain  for  us  to  attempt  to  make  an  exposition  of  the  divine 
nature  which  will  have  power  among  men.  We  are  lo  recollect  that 
Christianity  itself  is  an  influence  that  is  educating  men  not  only  to  be 
better,  but  fi-om  their  own  goodness  to  conceive  of  a  higher  type  of 
character.  The  consequence  is  that  from  age  to  age  the  expositions  of 
the  divine  character  are  larger  and  nobler.  And  thus  religion  is  doing 
its  appropriate  work. 

It  is  impossible  that  God  should  be  revealed  in  entirety.  There- 
fore we  come  to  the  knowledge  of  God  little  by  little;  and  that,  not  by 
the  mere  power  of  thinldng,  but  by  the  power  of  being.  We  need  to 
have  better  households  ;  nobler  and  truer  fathers  ;  larger  and  richer 
mothers.  We  need  more  of  that  which  enters  into  the  highest  char- 
acter. It  is  needful  that  the  finer  and  more  admirable  traits  should 
come  out  in  men,  and  that  we  should  see  them  and  become  familiar 
with  them  in  parents  and  friends  and  neighbors.  And  the  moment 
this  takes  place,  we  begin  to  feel  the  need  of  just  such  elements  as 
these  in  our  God.     Then  there  comes  up  in  our  reasonings  about  God 


304  MAN'S  WILL  AND  GOD'S  LOVE. 

the  requisition  of  a  Deity  that  shall  represent  all  those  higher,  sweeter 
and  more  beautiful  elements  which  we  have  seen  unfolded  in  the  house- 
hold, and  in  the  best  men  in  the  community ;  namely,  patience,  self- 
denial,  long-suffering,  kindness,  love — all  that  goes  to  constitute  and 
fill  out  our  highest  ideal.  Thus,  all  those  things  which  we  have  derived 
from  the  inspiration  of  God  go  back  and  interpret  God  to  our  thought- 
Our  conception  of  the  divine  character  ought  to  grow  larger,  our  defini- 
tion of  attribute  and  authority  ought  to  grow  nobler,  in  every  cycle  of 
ages  in  the  world.  As  mankind  go  up,  their  ideas  of  God  should  go  up. 
And  if  men  have  fixed  their  notion  of  God  so  firmly  that  they  cannot 
change  it;  if  they  have  just  such  a  philosophical  formula  which  they 
attempt  to  keep  from  age  to  age,  the  world  is  robbed  of  the  comfort  and 
benefit  of  its  own  capacity  to  understand  God  better.  It  is  this  that 
makes  the  doctrine  of  the  dependence  of  man  upon  God  so  oppressive 
that  men  often  revolt  at  it  and  refuse  to  accept  it.  They  have  had  a 
growing  conviction  of  what  God  is,  and  what  he  must  be.  There  are 
many  things  about  him  of  which  they  have  no  clear  idea,  but  of  what 
his  great  attributes  are  they  feel  that  they  have  abundant  indications. 
There  are  thousands  of  you  who  hear  sermons  about  God  which  you 
do  not  believe,  and  will  not  to  the  end.  You  go  home  after  listening 
to  an  exposition  of  the  divine  nature,  and  say,  "  That  may  be  so ; 

he  seemed  to  prove  it ;  but ."     What  does  that  shake  of  the 

head  mean,  but  this :  "  Although  it  seems  to  be  so,  yet  I  do  not  be- 
lieve it."  Views  are  pressed  upon  men  through  whole  periods  of  years, 
which  their  moral  sentiments,  their  affections  and  their  tastes  reject  and 
repudiate.  Motives  of  government  are  urged  upon  men  which  the  com- 
mon people  can  not  at  all  make  up  their  minds  to  accept.  I  can  tell 
you  why  they  will  not  accept  them.  Because  the  representations  of  the 
divine  character  and  of  the  divine  government  which  are  presented  to 
the  community  are  presented  to  men  whose  minds  have  been  lifted 
nigher  than  those  representations,  by  the  inspiration  of  God's  provid- 
ence, which  is  teaching  us  truer  and  nobler  conceptions  of  manhood — 
and  of  manhood  all  the  way  up.  And  we  measure  God  by  these  hu- 
man ideas — the  only  standards  by  which  we  can  measure  him — the 
only  means  of  interpretation  which  we  have.  Now,  unless  theologians 
keep  pace  with  the  growth  of  actual  manhood  in  the  ages  of  the  world, 
unless  they  keep  pace  with  the  best  inspirations  of  the  best  men,  they 
resist  and  hinder  the  great  moral  doctrines  of  the  universe,  and  they 
present  an  en'oneous  conception  of  the  attributes  of  the  great  moral 
Governor  of  the  globe ;  and  men  little  by  little  fall  away  from  those 
fjonceptions.  For  men  will  follow  theii*  highest  instincts  of  that  which 
'£  pure,  and  true,  and  sweet,  and  lovely,  and  divine. 

It  la  on  this  point  which  I  have  attempted  to  analyze  and  portray, 


MA2P 8  WILL  AND  GOD'S  LOVE.         •  305 

that  I  differ  from  my  venerated  father,  and  that  I  have  differed  from 
my  brethren  in  the  ministiy.  I  have  tried  to  understand  these  con- 
ceptions of  duty  and  love  and  fidelity  which  I  saw  plainly  in  life 
around  about  me,  which  I  have  gathered  up  and  brought  to  bear 
as  a  kind  of  medium  and  lens  by  which  I  have  interpreted  the  same 
things  in  God. 

Tliere  is  a  higher  moral  government  of  God  than  that  which  has 
been  taught  us.  The  arguments  and  analogues  which  have  been  drawn 
from  civil  government,  and  by  which  God  is  restrained  in  the  teach- 
ings of  generations  gone  by,  are  borrowed,  not  from  the  strongest  but 
the  weakest  side  of  human  development.  The  arguments  and  analogues 
which  men  have  been  afraid  to  draw  from  the  household,  I  have  drawn 
from  the  household.  And  I  have  said,  and  I  affirm  again,  and  would 
say  if  it  were  my  last  message,  that  we  are  to  interpret  the  nature  of 
God,  not  from  monarchy,  and  not  from  the  necessities  of  civil  govern- 
ment. Whether  God  is  personal,  and  his  government  paternal,  must 
be  determined  from  the  personal  relations  of  a  father  to  his  own  chil- 
dren. And  as  God  is  infinite,  so  he  must  be  better  than  any  earthly  fath- 
ers— better  in  the  direction  of  love,  and  long-suffering,  and  patience, 
and  goodness,  and  self-sacrifice.  And  here  it  is  that  comes  in  the  sacri- 
fice of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  to  you,  and  to  me,  and  to  the  whole 
world. 

"  And  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten  Son  to  die 
for  it." 

Away  with  your  reprobate  schemes,  away  with  your  infernal  nec- 
romancy of  old  theologies,  to  teach  me  that  God  sits  on  the  throne 
of  tlie  universe  and  creates  men  on  purpose  to  damn  them,  and  does 
it  without  any  foresight  of  their  conduct,  and  for  his  own  pleasure!  I 
protest  against  the  blasphemy  and  the  infamy  of  such  a  representation 
of  God.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  I  bring  you  this  teaching  of  the 
New  Testament,  that  the  highest  and  the  mightiest  state  of  greatness 
means  serving  the  lowest  and  the  least.  God  said,  "  This  is  the  evi- 
dence of  my  love,  that  I  have  given  my  own  Son  to  die  rather  than 
that  mankind  should  die." 

I  lake  that  sentiment,  that  highest  fact  respecting  the  character  and 
goveininent  of  God — the  central  fact  of  his  self-sacrificing  love;  and 
I  say,  Whatever  you  cannot  get  into  that,  leave  out;  and  whatever 
you  can  put  into  that,  put  it  in,  and  keep  it  there.  If  you  attempt  to 
frame  God's  character  from  monarchy, — from  the  rude  experiments  of 
civil  government  in  this  world, — you  will  have  a  God  that  is  hrird- 
featured,  hard-handed,  selfish,  despotic ;  but  if  you  take  God  as  the 
Fatlier  of  the  world,  and  frame  a  belief  of  God  from  the  noblest  type 
of  the  parental  relation,  and  put  into  it  all  the  sweet  affinities  that  be- 


306  •         MAN'S  WILL  AND  GOD'S  LOVE. 

loi)""  to  the  lionsehol(3,  you  cannot  go  far  wrong.  And  the  more  you 
study  it,  the  more  you  will  find  that  it  brings  you  into  sympathy  and 
a""reement  with  the  average  representations  of  the  New  Testament. 

So  presented,  it  seems  to  me  that  no  person  would  ever  seek  to 
avoid  this  great  Scripture  truth,  "Without  me  ye  can  do  nothing,"  but 
that  all  men  will  fall  into  the  belief  of  it  as  children  fall  into  the  love 
of  home.  The  child  that  is  brought  up  well  at  liorae,  has  no  brighter 
conception  of  life  and  joy,  than,  when  Christmas  sets  him  free,  and 
Thanksgiving  comes  round,  and  holidays  intervene  between  the  peri- 
ods  of  business,  to  go  back  again  to  the  parental  roof,  if  the  vener- 
ated fuher  and  mother  still  live,  who  brought  him  up  to  honor  and 
usefulness,  through  love  and  fidelity  and  kindness.  When  a  man  is 
strong,  there  is  nothing  that  he  likes  to  do  so  much  as  to  bow  down 
to  those  that  taught  him  to  be  strong.  The  stronger  a  man  is,  the 
more  he  wants  to  have  some  one  that  is  stronger  than  he  is  to  lean 
upon.  There  is  a  pleasure  in  being  independent ;  but  there  is  also 
a  pleasure  in  being  dependent.  There  is  in  this  life  a  love  of  freedom, 
and  satisfaction  in  a  self-poised  will ;  but  this  life  also  has  the  reclining 
instinct,  the  bowing-down  instinct,  the  love  of  looking  up  to  one  who 
is  higher  and  better.  The  child  likes  to  look  up  to  his  father,  be 
cause  the  fither  is  larger  and  stronger  and  wiser  than  the  child.  And 
when  Christ  taught  this  doctrine,  he  taught  one  of  the  most  familiar 
of  our  experiences,  and  one  that  all  recognize — the  being  depend- 
ent upon  and  leaning  on  those  who  are  superior.  That  truth  is  the 
same  whether  it  be  applied  to  our  relations  with  our  fellow  men  or  to 
our  relations  with  God.  And  all  our  life  long  we  have,  as  Christians, 
and  as  members  of  Christian  households,  been  blessed  with  every  de- 
velopment of  thought,  with  every  fundamental  element  of  faith,  and 
with  every  relation  of  affectionate  trust,  and  affectionate  submission, 
and  affectionate  dependence.  This  has  been  the  providential  educa- 
tion which  God  has  brought  out  in  the  household.  And  when  Christ 
tui'ned  to  his  disciples,  and  said,  "  Without  me  ye  can  do  nothing,"  it 
was  not  to  remind  them  of  their  poverty :  it  was  to  teach  them 
gratitude.     When  Love  says  to  Love,  "  You  are  nothing  without  me," 

/  Love  feels  enriched.  And  when  God  says  that  we  are  dependent  upon 
him,  it  is  not  for  the  sake  of  shaking  his  crown  in  our  faces ;  it  is  not 
for  the  sake  of  making  his  power  flame  before  our  eyes  ;  it  is  not 
equivalent  to  his  saying,  "  How  weak  you  are  down  there !  and  how 
strong  I  am  up  here  !  "     It  is  as  the  bending  of  the  mother  over  the 

(^  cradle,  and  soothing  the  fears  of  the  little  child.  It  is  as  the  benedic- 
tion of  the  old  man  who  bids  his  children  hope  in  dark  and  trying 
days.  It  is  the  assurance  of  protection.  It  is  the  conferring  of  a 
pai-ental  blessing.     It  is  a  declaration  of  love  on  the  part  of  God. 


MAN'S  WILL  AND  GOB'S  LOVE.  307 

We  are  weak ;  we  are  needy ;  we  all  need  disinterested  friends. 
And  there  is  no  such  Friend  as  God — none  that  is  so  near  to  us,  none 
that  thinks  of  us  so  much,  none  that  looks  upon  us  as  so  dear.  Your 
father  does  not  love  you  as  God  does,  and  your  mother  does  not.  The 
very  center  of  the  universe  burns  and  glows  with  the  summer  of  love. 
And  all  the  intimations  of  our  affiliations  with  God  and  our  dependence 
upon  him,  are  but  so  many  sweet  voices  speaking  to  us  with  words  of 
love,  of  benediction  and  of  immoitality. 

God  grant  that  in  our  constant  needs  we  may  rely,  not  even  up- 
on our  own  earnest  efforts,  but  upon  Ilim  who  is  our  health,  our 
strength,  our  life,  and  who  puts  his  arm  about  us,  and  says,  in  the 
moment  of  every  strait  oj*  emergency,  "  Without  me  ye  can  do  noth- 
ing." And  may  our  souls  rejoice,  and  say,  "  I  can  do  all  things, 
Chiist  strengthening  me." 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE   SERMON.* 

Thou  holy  atid  eternal  God !  we  rejoice  that  we  may  look  forth  without 
trembling,  though  we  reverence.  For  thou  art  our  Father,  and  art  a  thou- 
sand times  more  full  of  graciousness  and  tenderness  toward  us  than  we,  with 
our  limited  instincts,  are  toward  our  children.  Thy  wisdom  comprehends 
all  our  being.  Thy  power  surrounds  the  utmost  limit  of  thought,  and  trans- 
r-ends  conception.  Thy  wisdom  is  entire  and  infinite,  and  thy  goodness  is 
the  reason  of  the  goodness  that  is  throughout  creation.  For  every  heart  haa 
been  kindled  at  thine.  Every  pulsation  of  gladness  is  of  thee,  and  learned 
of  thee  how  to  be.  And  thou  art  in  all  things,  filhng  all,  teaching  all,  in- 
spiring all,  and  rejoicing  in  all  thy  work. 

And  now  grant  that  we  may  be  lifted  up  above  the  level  of  ordinary  ap- 
prehensions, and  that  we  may  learn  to  love  those  that  are  deijendent  upon 
us,  even  as  we  are  loved  of  God.  Help  us  to  give  more  and  more  dignity 
and  wisdom  and  power  to  our  affections,  and  to  distil  them  upon  our  chil- 
dren :  not  as  upon  idols,  but  with  the  thought  of  their  immortality.  May 
it  be  granted  unto  us  so  to  live  as  to  strengthen  all  love,  and  to  build  up  in 
a  godly  and  holy  faith  a  commonwealth  of  life,  and  a  preparation  for  im- 
mortality. 

Be  with  thy  servants  that  have  presented  their  children,  and  have  with 
faith  offered  them  up,  that  they  may  from  infancy  be  consecrated  to  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  "We  pray  that  these  children  may  be  spared,  and  that 
they  may  grow  up  to  lives  of  usefulness  and  wisdom  and  honor.  And  may 
the  parents  be  actuated  to  say  the  right  things,  and  to  do  the  right  things. 
j\  nd  may  they  find  the  blessing  of  God  going  with  them  and  surrounding 
them  in  their  houseliolds,  so  that  it  shall  not  be  a  vain  thing  that  they  have 
offered  themselves  and  their  offspring  in  covenant  unto  God. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  remember  the  parents  who  have  aforetime,  by 
discipline  and  instruction,  and  in  the  spirit  of  love,  sought  to  win  their  chil- 
dren from  all  that  is  earthly  and  evil,  and  to  inspire  in  them  all  that  is  right 
and  noble.    Accept  their  desires  and  their  efforts. 

*  Immediately  following  the  baptism  of  children. 


308  MAN'S  WILL  AND  GOD'S  LOVE. 

And  we  pray  for  the  young  in  our  midst.  Wilt  thou  grant  tliat  they  may 
Krow  up  in  integrity,  and  in  truth,  and  in  honor,  and  in  fidelity,  and  that 
they  may  be  prepared  well  to  perform  their  part  in  the  lil«  that  now  is,  and 
to  inherit  the  greater  gladness  of  that  life  which  is  to  come. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  the  labors  of  those  that  seek  to  inspire 
the  young  with  truth.  Bless  our  Sabbath-schools  and  Bible-classes.  And 
be  with  all  those  who  go  forth  among  the  neglected,  to  teach  them.  May 
they  be  sanctified  with  the  spirit  of  their  master,  and  with  all  patience 
and  gentleness  and  fidelity  may  they  seek  to  make  up  the  lack  of  those 
that  are  outcast  and  needy. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  the  labors  of  this  church,  in  every  direction. 
More  and  more  fill  it  with  thy  Spirit  and  with  thy  praise.  More  and  more 
may  its  power  be  a  power  as  of  God,  and  direct  men  as  with  a  shining  light 
into  the  right  path,  and  away  from  things  harmful  and  tilings  dangerous. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  thy  churches  everywhere.  Multiply  the 
number  of  those  who  shall  be  able  to  make  kno^n  the  excellence  of  God  to 
men.  Build  up  Zion  on  every  hand.  May  her  waste  places  come  up  in  re- 
membrance before  thee.  Be  with  all  those  who  in  feebleness  and  sickness 
and  opposition,  and  half-discouraged,  labor  and  strive  in  word  and  doc- 
trine ;   and  by  the  Spirit  give  them  courage  and  victory. 

We  pray  that  those  who  have  gone  abroad  to  preach  the  unsearchabla 
riches  of  Christ's  Gospel  among  the  dark  and  outlying  nations  of  the  earth, 
may  be  prospered.  Though  the  seed  which  they  sow  seem  long  to  lie  un- 
fruitful, at  lene*>  ^iring  iu  Jew  and  Gentile,  and  fill  the  whole  earth  with 
thy  glory. 

O  Lord !  how  long  shall  it  be  that  the  kingdom  of  darkness  shall  contest 
the  kingdom  of  light  ?  How  long  shall  cruelty  lift  its  hand  against  mercy  ? 
How  long  shall  men  rage  against  their  fellow  men  as  brute  beasts  of  the 
forests  rage  against  each  other?  When  wilt  thou  come  to  make  known  thy 
power  and  thy  love?  When  wilt  thou  bring  peace  and  knowledge  and 
purity  ?  When  shall  the  earth  see  thy  salvation  ?  Thou  hast  promised  it ; 
and  we  believe  that  in  thine  own  good  time  thou  wilt  bring  it  to  pass.  Even 
so.  Lord  Jesus,  come  quickly.  And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise,  Father, 
Son,  and  Spirit,  evermore.    Aynen. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMOK 

Our  Father,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  go 
with  the  words  which  have  been  spoken.  Draw  near  to  our  understanding 
and  our  imagination.  Draw  near  with  might,  and  interpret  thy  power  and 
truth  and  wisdom  to  us.  Lift  upon  us  the  light  of  thy  countenance.  Give 
us  the  joy  of  thy  salvation.  By  the  Holy  Ghost  may  we  be  lifted  above  all 
trial  and  trouble,  and  be  made  strong  in  the  life  which  now  is,  and  be  pre- 
pared for  the  life  which  is  to  come.  And  at  last  wilt  thou  crown  us  with 
welcome  and  greet  us  with  joy. 

And  we  will  give  the  praise  of  our  salvation  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and 
the  Holy  Spirit.    Amen. 


XIX. 

Making  Others  Happy 


INVOCATION. 

We  thank  thee,  our  heavenly  Father,  for  the  light  of  the  nib-ning,  and 
for  that  inspiring  presence  by  which  we  are  brought  again  into  tny  temple, 
and  behold  thee,  and  feel  thy  Spirit  moving  upon  our  hearts.  We  pray 
for  light  from  above— for  that  light  -which  shall  guide  us  through  all  doubt 
and  darkness,  and  bring  us  to  that  peace  which  passeth  all  understanding. 
Grant  to  every  one  in  thy  presence,  this  morning,  the  intimation  of  thy 
presence ;  the  sense  of  pardoned  sin ;  and  the  hope  of  salvation  through 
Jesus  Christ.  Bless  to  us  the  ministrations  of  instruction,  of  devotion  and  of 
fellowship  in  song.  And  may  the  services  of  the  sanctuary,  and  of  the  day 
be  blessed  of  God,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Redeemer.    Amen. 

Id 


MAKING  OTHERS  HAPPY. 


*•  Let  every  one  of  us  please  his  neighbor  for  his  good  to  edification.    For 
even  Christ  pleased  not  himself  ."—Rom.  xv.,  2,  3. 


A  man's  soul  is  like  a  garden  belonging  to  an  old  neglected  man- 
sion. It  is  full  of  excellent  things  run  to  waste.  There  are  vines 
unpruned,  and  fruit  trees  covered  with  moss  and  canker ;  thickets  of 
roses,  and  thickets  of  thorns  ;  tangles  of  vines  and  of  nettles ;  rank 
and  noisome  weeds,  as  well  as  fair  flowers. 

Now,  it  is  the  business  of  a  garden  to  be  wholesome,  and  sweet, 
and  beautiful.  It  has  no  right  to  have  weeds  in  it,  nor  to  have  its 
beautiful  things  dilapidated.  It  is  made  on  purpose  to  confer  pleas- 
ure and  profit. 

Thus  it  is  with  the  soul  of  man.  It  is  full  of  good  dispositions  ; 
of  kind  impulses  ;  of  true  affections  ;  of  wholesome  fi'uits.  But  be- 
sides these,  the  mind  of  man  is  full  of  frets,  and  peevish  murmvirings, 
and  the  stinging  nettles  of  pride,  and  vanities  flaunting  coarse  col- 
ors. A  soul's  power  to  produce  pleasure  or  pain  in  another  is  very- 
great.  If  it  throw  over  on  its  fellows  the  whole  force  of  its  excellence 
and  its  beauty,  it  can  produce  great  cheer  and  great  delight.  But 
if  the  soul  of  man  scowl  over  upon  its  neighbors,  it  is  organized 
to  produce  very  great  pain  and  trouble.  We  are  commanded, 
therefore,  so  to  use  the  whole  of  ourselves  that  from  day  to  day  we 
shall  produce  pleasure  among  those  with  whom  we  consort.  It  is  not 
left  optional  with  us,  whether  men  shall  be  made  happier  by  our 
going  among  them.  It  is  not  left  to  us  to  produce  pleasure  in  occa- 
sional moments.  It  is  a  commandment  that  mcludes  the  whole  of  our 
nature,  and  the  whole  of  our  time.  We  are  to  be  such  and  to  live 
in  such  a  way  that  wherever  we  go  we  shall  please  men /or  their 
good  to  edification, — please  them  in  such  a  way  that  they  shall  be 
more  manly  afterwards  than  they  were  before.  The  soul  finds  in 
the  reason  an  infinite  field  of  material  from  which  to  select  the  im- 
plements of  pleasing.  Its  affections  are  full  of  sweetness  as  the 
honey-comb  is  of  honey.      Its  wit,  its  taste  and  its  imagination,  are 

Sunday  Morning,  Jan.  15,  ISTl.   Lesson:  Rom.  xIt.    Htmns  (Plymouth  Collection): 
Nos.  1341,  898, 12G2. 


310  MAKING  OTEEES  HAPPY. 

potent  engineers  of  pleasure.  But  these  are  just  as  strong  to  pro- 
duce discontent,  and  irx-itation,  and  a  sense  of  painful  inferiority  and 
general  unhappiness,  in  other  people. 

Now,  beside  the  great  ends  which  men  are  commanded  to  seek — 
their  manhood  here,  and  their  immortality  hereafter — there  is  a  dis- 
tinct command  that  they  shall  so  carry  themselves  in  the  weighty 
business  of  life,  that  they  shall  make  all  around  them  happy.  And 
not  occasionally,  by  a  gleam  and  a  smile.  It  is  to  enter  into  our  fun- 
damental notion  of  the  carriage  of  our  lives.  We  are  deliberately 
and  anxiously  to  cast  out  from  ourselves  those  elements  that  make 
needless  pain ;  and  we  are  to  cultivate  and  employ — and  that  gener- 
ously and  continuously — those  elements  which  make  pleasure,  and 
which  make  our  fellow-men  happier. 

Making  people  happy  is  neither  a  small  nor  an  unimportant  busi- 
ness. As  I  regard  ccood  nature  as  one  of  the  richest  fruits  of  true 
Christianity,  so  I  regard  the  making  of  people  round  about  us  happy 
as  one  of  the  best  manifestations  of  that  Christian  disposition  which 
we  are  commanded  to  wear  as  a  garment. 

In  our  Lord's  own  life,  it  is  manifest  that  he  did,  day  by  day,  a 
multitude  of  things  for  the  mere  sake  of  soothing  trouble ;  of  calming 
irritation ;  of  smoothing  asperities ;  of  producing  amiable  feelings. 
While  he  instructed  men,  while  he  inspired  them  with  noble  heroisms 
and  ambitions,  his  life  was  also  filled  up  with  a  thousand  small  shades 
of  goodness,  whose  very  nature  it  was  to  make  men  contented  and 
happy.  And  his  example  is  expressly  quoted  in  the  context,  for 
our  imitation. 

First,  in  the  great  movement  of  human  life,  men  find  the  lower 
side  of  their  nature  played  upon  more  than  the  upper  side.  We  are 
brought  in  contact  with  the  world  through  our  appetites,  through 
our  passions,  through  those  faculties  which  belong  to  our  physical 
organization.  These  baser  instincts  are  apt  to  sink  down  into 
an  animal  life.  We  drudge  by  them.  They  are  unable  to 
rouse  themselves.  Men  are  often  unable  to  excite  their  better  na- 
ture. The  thousands  and  thousands  who  are  poor,  who  are  un- 
successful, who  are  feeble,  who  are  perpetually  in  ill-luck,  are 
liable  to  dwell  in  the  low  and  chilly  fog  of  fret  and  discontent. 
The  undertone  of  human  life  Is  very  sad.  The  household  does 
not  ring  out,  except  here  and  there,  like  a  well-tuned  instrument. 
It  is  cheerless,  it  is  solitary,  it  is  voiceless,  or  it  quarrels,  or  it 
drones,  or  it  droops,  or  it  drudges.  Men  that  we  meet — the  se- 
lect, the  fortunate,  Avhom  by  elective  afiinity  we  naturally  take  to 
ourselves — they  sparkle  upon  us,  and  we  sparkle  back  upon  them ; 
but  in  every  trade,  in  every  profession,  in  every  kind  of  business, 


1 


MAKING  OTHERS  HAPPY.  3 1 1 

IS  a  middle  line  ;  and  below  that  men  are  living  with  but  very  little 
cheer,  with  comparatively  little  comfort,  with  much  fear,  with  much 
sorrow,  and  with  many  malign  passions. 

Now,  it  is  not  simply  our  duty  as  Christians  to  make  known  a  his- 
torical Gospel.  Our  duty  as  Christians  is  not  simply  to  go  out 
after  men  that  enthrone  themselves  outside  of  morality.  Here,  at 
our  right  hand,  and  at  our  left — all  about  us — society  is  full  of  men 
whose  lives  average  but  very  little  sweetness.  And  it  is  for  us  to 
l^lease  them ;  to  seek  to  make  them  happier.  This  we  do  if  we  have 
a  j)urpose  to  serve.  If  we  desire  to  use  men  in  any  way  selfishly,  we 
seek  to  please  them.  But  the  command  is  that  we  shall  do  it  benev- 
olently :  that  the  way  in  which  we  carry  ourselves  shall  not  be 
merely  to  avoid  evil  and  to  maintain  our  own  uprightness ;  but  in 
maintaining  our  uprightness  we  are  so  to  carry  ourselves  that  the 
vibrations  of  our  hearts  shall  bring  music  out  of  the  hearts  of  others- 
The  business  of  making  men  happy  that  are  not  happy  does  not 
lie  half  so  near  to  the  consciousness  of  men  as  it  ought  to.  If  it  is  in 
the  power  of  men  to  touch  the  higher  nature,  and  to  rouse  men  to 
cheer,  to  good  nature,  to  hope,  to  good  will,  to  mirth,  to  courage, 
then  this  is  a  part  of  their  Christian  duty. 

What  is  an  adagio  from  one  of  Beethoven's  symphonies  ?  What\ 
but  a  mere  motion  of  the  wind — a  congeries  of  invisible  pulsations  in 
the  air?  And  yet,  when  care  has  lowered,  and  life  sits  heavily  on 
your  heart,  one  half-hour  in  hearing  such  divine  sounds  renews  your 
soul,  and  sends  you  away  recreate.  How  much  more,  then,  when 
not  dead  instruments,  but  the  living  faculties  of  a  truly  loving  Chris- 
tian soul,  send  forth  their  influence !  How  the  heart  of  man  can  make 
the  heart  of  man  pulsate  with  pleasure,  if  it  will ! 

Some  men  move  through  life  as  a  band  of  music  moves  down  the 
street,  flinging  out  pleasure  on  every  side  through  the  air  to  every 
one,  far  and  near,  that  can  listen.  Some  men  fill  the  air  with  their 
presence  and  sweetness  as  orchards,  in  October  days,  fill  the  air  with 
the  perfume  of  ripe  fruit.  Some  women,  cling  to  their  own 
houses  like  the  honeysuckle  over  the  door,  yet  like  it  fill  all  the 
region  with  the  subtle  fragrance  of  their  goodness.  How  great  a 
bounty  and  a  blessing  is  it  so  to  hold  the  royal  gifts  of  the  soul  that 
they  shall  be  music  to  some,  and  fragrance  to  others,  and  life  to  all ! 
It  would  be  no  unworthy  thing  to  live  for,  to  make  the  power  which 
we  have  within  us  the  breath  of  other  men's  joy;  to  fill  the  atmos- 
phere which  they  must  stand  in,  with  a  brightness  which  they 
cannot  create  for  themselves. 

Men  neglect  frequently  these  very  simple  and  very  obvious 
truths,  because   there  is  still  a  remnant  of  stoicism  and  asceticism 


312  MAKING  OTHERS  UAPFY. 

amono"  o-ood  men,  leading  to  an  unexpressed  contempt  for  happiness- 
making.  There  are  many  men  who  feel  that  being  happy  is  well 
enough  in  its  way,  but  that  its  way  is  a  very  superficial  way.  "  Oh," 
say  they,  "  make  men  better,  make  them  strong,  make  them  pure, 
and  then  their  happiness  will  take  care  of  itself."  They  undervalue 
the  moral  results  of  making  men  superficially  happy.  For  much  of 
men's  selfishness,  and  querulousness,  and  pain-making,  springs  from 
their  own  unhappiness.  And  whatever  shall  take  that  away  will 
tend  to  make  them  better  ;  and  they  in  turn  will  make  others  better. 
A  gentle  happiness  is  favorable  to  virtue  and  to  morality,  as  exces- 
sive excitement  and  warring  and  discontent  are  favorable  to  mur- 
murings,  and  to  rebellion,  and  to  sin.  And  he  who  can  please  his 
neio-hbor  in  things  good,  is  actually  making  his  neighbor  a  better 
man  by  making  him  a  happier  man. 

Men  feel  that  life  has  far  weightier  duties,  however,  than  tickling 
each  other's  fancies.  There  are  many  men  who  think  that  every  one 
should  take  care  of  himself  They  say,  "  My  business  is  to  be 
honest,  and  true,  and  right,  and  just,  in  the  main;  but  it  is  not  my 
business  to  go  round  tickling  people's  palms  to  see  them  laugh."  Yet 
you  have  no  business  to  be  just  and  true  and  honest  and  right  in  such 
a  way  that  those  who  stand  next  to  you  shall  be  less  happy  by  your 
way  of  being  honest  and  true  and  right  and  just.  Of  all  creatures, 
there  is  not  one  that  has  a  better  right  to  be  a  hedgehog  than  a 
hedo-ehog;  but  is  he  a  good  neighbor  ?  Is  he  a  pleasant  bosom  com- 
panion ?  A  thistle,  standing  in  the  corner  of  the  garden,  where  the 
gate  opens,  all  men  have  to  avoid ;  but  it  never  avoids  any  that  it 
can  scratch.  A  thistle  has  been  ordained,  and  belongs  to  the  economy 
of  nature ;  and  yet,  is  it  the  model  of  a  man  ?  How  many  men 
there  are,  who,  blunt,  rude  of  speech,  and  thoughtless  of  expression, 
o-o  thrusting  here,  and  piercing  there,  and  treading  down  sensitive- 
ness on  every  side,  with  no  other  excuse  except  this :  "  Well,  I  believe 
in  a  straight,  out-and-out  kind  of  blunt  man.  Jack  Blunt  is  my 
model !"  Undoubtedly,  and  a  very  bad  model  very  well  imitated, 
too! 

No  man  has  a  right  to  carry  himself  in  such  a  way  that  he  shall 
gash  his  fellow-men  ;  in  such  a  way  that  he  shall  strike  them  by 
rudeness,  either  of  the  tongue  or  of  the  hand. 

If  a  man  shovild  swing  himself  through  an  orphan  asylum,  say- 
ino-  "  I  like  to  see  a  manly  carriage,  and  I  like  to  see  a  man  take  as 
much  air  as  belongs  to  him  ;"  if  he  should  sweep  past  the  children, 
knocking  them  right  and  left,  and  saying,  "  Let  others  take  care  of 
themselves !  "  he  would  be  turned  out  as  a  brute,  and  would  deserve 
to  be.     And  yet,  how  many  men  go  through  life  carrying  their 


MAKING  OTEEES  EAFPY.  313 

tongue,  carrying  tlieir  temper,  carrying  their  whole  disposition,  so 
that  wherever  they  go,  men,  though  they  say,  "  There  is  much  that 
is  good  in  them,"  dread  them,  and  expect  that  somebody  will  suffer 
before  they  get  away. 

Oftentimes  it  is  set  down  to  the  credit  of  blunt  honesty;  and 
men  say,  "  How  much  better  it  is,  after  all,  to  have  a  man  who  speaks 
his  mind,  than  to  have  one  of  these  Machiavelian  men,  who  is  all 
smirks,  and  full  of  gentleness,  and  very  inoffensive,  but  in  whose  ex- 
ceeding good  nature  you  know  there  is  not  a  particle  of  sincerity  ! " 

But  why  not  have  a  man  ru/ht  f  Why  not  have  a  man 
that  is  just  and  true  and  honest,  and  that  so  carries  his  honesty  and 
truth  and  justice  as  to  be  pleasant  to  men,  and  not  painful?  Why 
should  any  one  go  about  perpetually  with  his  nails  uncut,  so  that 
they  shall  scratch  and  give  pain  to  all  who  take  his  hand  ? 

Love  has  no  duties  that  can  be  put  aside  worthily.  Even  when 
love  demands  that  we  shall  produce  pain,  it  is  to  be  done  in  the 
S2)irit  of  benevolence.  The  essential  spirit  of  Christianity  requires 
that  men  shall  so  carry  themselves  in  the  weightiest  affairs  of  life 
that  they  shall  please  their  neighbors  and  their  friends  for  good  to 
edification  ;  for  even  Christ  pleased  not  himself .  He  lived,  not  for 
his  own  comfort  and  convenience,  but  for  the  welfare  of  other  people. 

We  are  not  at  liberty,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  to  please  by 
pandering  to  the  bad  elements  in  men's  characters.  We  have  no 
right  to  make  men  happy  by  feeding  their  malice  ;  by  feedin"-  their 
avarice ;  by  feeding  their  unmanly  appetites.  We  must  move  upon 
the  right  feelings  in  men,  and  not  stir  up  the  wrong  ones,  nor  the  evil 
ones.  It  is  not  only  for  us  to  make  men  happier,  but  to  make  them 
happier  by  using  that  which  is  best  in  them,  and  that  which  is  best 
in  ourselves,  and  so  promoting  the  reign  of  good  will  and  of  peace. 
"  Blessed  are  the  peace-makers." 

Yes ;  and  I  think  you  might  construe  that  without  violence  so 
as  to  make  it  read,  Blessed  are  the  happiness-makers.  Blessed  are 
they  that  take  away  attritions ;  that  remove  friction ;  that  make 
the  courses  of  life  smooth,  and  the  intercourse  of  men  gentle.  Blessed 
are  they  who  know  how  to  shine  on  one's  gloom  with  their  cheer. 
Blessed  are  they  whom  God  has  equipped  with  humor,  and  wit,  and 
a  good  imagination,  and  a  buoyant  temperament.  They  are  God's 
torch-bearers,  sent  to  those  that  sit  in  darkness  and  despondency,  to 
i'hcer  them. 

Sometimes  men  have  thought  that  it  was  useful  for  a  Christian  to\ 
iay  aside  smiles  and  laughter  and  gayety.     Nay  I   nay  !     Till  the  ! 
world  weeps   less,  I  think  there  should  be  more  smiles.      Till  the 
world  sorrows  less,  there  should  be  more  gayety.     Till  the  world 


314  MAKING  0THEB8  HAPPY, 

lives  better,  there  should  be  more  of  the  imagination  and  of  refined 
taste  thrown  over  the  rude  forms  of  actuality  in  life.  They  should 
count  themselves  signally  blessed  of  God  who  are  endowed  with  a 
nature  so  full  of  pity,  and  kindness,  and  love,  and  imagination,  and 
taste,  and  music,  that  they  can  throw  these  joy-bearing  elements 
abundantly  out  of  themselves,  and  make  the  whole  of  life  around 
about  them  sweeter  and  truer  and  happier.  Blessed  are  they 
to  whom  people  go  when  they  are  in  distress !  Blessed  are  they 
around  whom  little  children  flock  !  Blessed  are  they  that  are  sent 
for  by  men  when  they  are  in  extremities  and  emergencies  !  Blessed 
are  they  upon  whom  grateful  eyes  look,  saying,  "  Come  again ;  I  am 
better  for  your  coming."  Blessed  are  they  in  whose  presence  the 
dust  of  care  is  laid  by  moistening  drops  !  Blessed  are  they  whose 
eye  is  serene  ;  whose  voice  is  gentle  ;  whose  heart  is  sweet ;  whose 
life  makes  happiness  ! 

In  order  to  this,  as  you  will  see  in  a  moment,  there  must 
be  a  discipline  in  ourselves.  It  is  not  possible  for  us  to  be  un- 
der the  dominion  of  malign  feelings,  and  conceal  it  from  others. 
There  is  a  certain  degree  of  concealment  possible  ;  but  all  hidings  of 
the  actual  states  in  a  man,  are  actually  impossible.  In  the 
free  intercourse  of  human  life  you  carry  to  men  the  faculties  that 
are  active  in  you,  and  generally  excite,  or  tend  to  excite,  in  them, 
precisely  the  same  feelings.  If  you  are  irritable,  you  tend  to  pro- 
duce irritation.  If  you  are  proud,  you  tend  to  excite  pride,  and  the 
resistance  of  pride.  If  you  go  to  men  with  envyings,  if  you  meet 
them  with  jealousies,  if  you  bear  to  them  the  atmosphere  of 
selfishness  and  self-seeking,  they  catch  the  infection  from  you.  And 
these  feelings  never,  in  you  nor  in  any  other  person,  ministered  to 
cheer.  There  is  no  comfort  in  them.  They  are  sand  in  the  teeth. 
Obstinacy,  arrogance,  self-opinionated  ways,  sneering,  critical,  cynical, 
teasing,  disputative  dispositions  —  those  vigly-quilled  dispositions 
which  so  many  men  pride  themselves  in  having,  so  that  no  one  can 
touch  them  without  being  pricked — all  these  are  hateful  in  you,  and 
are  hateful  in  their  effects  upon  others.  No  man  can  be  happy  him- 
self, or  promote  happiness  in  other  men,  until  he  has  learned  to  put 
to  sleep  these  malign  faculties  every  day.  Pride  must  go  down,  or 
be  clothed  in  the  garments  of  benevolence.  Vanity  must  not  be  al- 
lowed to  dominate  the  other  parts  of  the  mind.  It  is  not  possible 
for  you  to  be  watching  the  faults  of  your  fellow-men,  and  at  the 
same  time  make  them  happy.  It  is  not  possible  for  you  to  be  intol- 
erant m  the  construction  which  you  put  upon  men's  conduct ;  it  is 
not  possible  for  you  to  be  cynical  in  your  intercourse  with  them  ;  it 
it  is  not  possible  for  you  to  tease  them,  and  with  ten  thousand  petty 


MAKING  OTHERS  HAPPY.  315 

disputations  or  murmurings  to  fill  up  the  hours  in  their  presence,  and 
yet  convey  happiness  to  them.  It  is  not  the  one  little  thing  that  we 
do  now  and  then  that  makes  life  what  it  is :  it  is  the  sum  of  the 
million  little  unconscious  dispositions  that  go  to  make  life  joyful  or 
painful. 

The  whole  machinery  of  life,  then,  needs  a  great  deal  of  oiling  in 
you,  in  order  that  you  may  minister  to  the  wants  of  others.  We  are 
not  simply  to  carry  happiness  to  those  that  are  around  about  us — to 
those  that  are  in  our  own  circle.  The  context  from  which  we  have 
selected  the  theme  of  our  morning's  remarks  indicates  a  much  wider 
scope  than  this. 

In  the  olden  time,  it  was  generally  thought  that  we  should  love 
our  friends  and  hate  our  enemies.  In  the  modern  time,  it  has  been 
thought  that  Ave  should  love  our  oAvn  denomination,  and  hate  those 
that  are  heretical.  Therefore  there  has  been  felt  to  be  a  solemn  duty 
incumbent  on  the  Catholic  to  hate  Protestants  ;  and  there  has  been 
felt  to  be  a  corresponding  duty  incumbent  on  the  Protestant  to  hate 
Catholics. 

Now,  it  is  my  business  as  a  Protestant  Christian  man  so  to  treat 
all  Catholics  that  I  &h^\\  2ylease  them^for  their  good,  to  edification. 
It  is  my  business,  standing  in  this  desk,  to  be  sure  to  speak  the 
truth  ;  but  if  possible,  so  to  speak  it  that  it  shall  be  divested  of 
offense.  And  if  it  is  unwelcome,  it  is  my  business  to  make  it  as 
little  unwelcome  as  it  is  in  the  power  of  skill  to  make  it. 

I  remember  the  time  when  if  a  clergyman  of  another  sect  came 
into  a  church,  the  minister  of  that  church  felt  himself  called  upon  to 
take  up  that  part  of  the  battle  which  had  reference  to  that  sect.  So 
the  Arminian  gave  his  opinion  of  Calvinism  roundly  to  the  intrusive 
Calvinist ;  and  afterwards,  when  the  Calvinist  got  the  Arminian  in 
his  grip,  he  paid  him  off  by  giving  him  his  opinion  of  Arminianism. 
And  if  we  meet  a  man  whose  belief  clashes  with  ours,  we  think  it 
our  business  to  give  him  some  side-long  blow  that  shall  remind  him 
of  what  he  is,  and  what  he  is  not.  It  is  supposed  that  religionists 
are  ordained  to  war;  and  so  two  doctrines  meet  each  other  as  two 
dogs,  strangers  m  the  neighborhood,  with  risings  in  the  back,  with 
growlings  in  the  mouth,  and  with  eyes  full  of  anything  but  amiable- 
ness.  Men  come  together  for  attrition  ;  they  come  together  to  stir 
each  other  up  ;  they  come  together  to  see  what  advantage  they  can 
gain  over  each  other. 

For  a  thousand  years  the  experiment  has  been  tried,  of  bom- 
barding men  into  love  and  faith  ;  and  with  what  luck  ?  Is  it  not 
time  to  see  if  we  cannot  love  men  into  unity  ;  if  we  C2inx\ot  please 
men  into  unity ;  if  we  cannot  drop  the  things  that  are  disagreeable, 


316  MAKING  OTHEES  HAPPT. 

and  insist  upon  the  things  that  are  pleasing,  for  good,  to  edification? 
When  will  the  time  come  that  Christians  shall  not  feel  obliged  to 
rasp  one  another,  to  criticise  one  another,  to  sit  in  judgment  upon 
one  another  ?  When  will  the  time  come  that  iu  shall  he  as  it  is  be 
tween  two  neighbors  ?  When  shall  it  be  that,  as  when  one  neigh- 
bor visits  the  house  of  another,  he  feels  himself  called  upon  to  com- 
pliment the  house,  to  admire  the  pictures,  to  praise  the  rare  paragon 
that  sports  upon  the  carpet,  so  men  shall  feel,  when  they  meet  to- 
gether in  each  other's  churches,  that  they  must  select  the  things 
that  are  pleasant  and  that  can  be  praised,  and  let  alone  the  things 
that  are  disagreeable,  and  tliat  cannot  be  praised  ? 

As  it  is  in  religious  matters,  so  should  it  be  in  civil.  There  are 
times  when  men  must  stand  in  politics  for  principles.  There  are 
times  when  men  must  have  success ;  when  great  issues  depend  upon 
it ;  and  at  such  times  men  cannot  avoid  doing  things  that  will  give 
pain.  But  this  fact  furnishes  no  criterion  for  the  average  of  cases. 
Ordinarily,  men  who  come  together  knowing  that  they  are  on  differ- 
ent sides  in  philosophy,  or  in  politics,  or  in  business,  if  they  be 
Christian  men,  should  rouse  up  their  memory,  and  bear  in  mind 
that  they  are  to  please  one  another,  for  good,  to  edification,  and  not 
irritate  and  chafe  and  hurt  each  other.  There  is  no  business  in  this 
world  that  is  so  poor  as  producing  pain  ;  and  there  is  no  business  in 
this  world  that  is  diviner  than  producing  the  higher  forms  of  happi- 
ness and  pleasure. 

"  In  honor  preferring  one  another." 

"  With  all  lowliness  and  meekness,  with  long-suffering,  forbearing  one 
another  in  love." 

See  the  mother,  worn;  see  her  cheeks,  sunken;  see  her  eye,  lack- 
in  «•  the  rest  which  nights  and  nights  of  watching  have  robbed  it  of; 
see  how  her  hand  trembles ;  see  how  unreasonable  the  child  is  upon 
her  knee  •  see  how  hard  it  is  to  tend  it,  and  to  cleanse  it  how  loath- 
some •  see  how  full  of  frets  the  child  is,  and  how  each  act  of  kindness 
it  repels !  And  yet  love  wears  out  the  weary  hours,  linked  one  with 
another*  and  all  day  long  the  mother  wears  herself  out,  in  love 
serving  the  little  child. 

"  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  except  ye  be  converted,  and  become  as  little 
children,  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 

Talk  about  hymns  ;  talk  about  prayers  ;  talk  about  ecstatic  experi- 
ences ;  talk  about  the  joys  and  raptures  of  religious  meetings  !  I  be- 
lieve in  them  all ;  but  not  for  people  who  do  not  know  how  to  hum- 
ble themselves,  and  to  go  down  and  serve  the  poor,  and  needy,  and 
inferior,  and  those  that  cannot  pay  them  again.  You  are  to  suspect 
your  raptures  when  you  are  selfish  in  the  details  of  your  life.  God 
does  not  send  angels  to  sing  to  the  top  of  your  life. 


MAKING  0TEEB8  HAPPY.  ol7 

If  these  views  are  correct  and  are  important,  then  there  is  a  new 
element  of  personal  piety  that  should  enter  into  the  conception  of 
every  ohe.  We  ask  men  whether  they  are  willing  to  leave  off  every 
known  sin,  and  join  themselves  to  the  people  of  God,  and  be  valiant 
for  the  faith,  and  by  the  faith,  with  men.  We  ask  them! if  they  will 
maintain  temperateness  and  morality  and  virtue.  We  ask  them  il 
they  Avill  go  in  and  out  among  the  people  of  God  in  an  exemplary 
manner.  But  how  seldom  do  we  question  men  as  to  beneficence  of  dis- 
position !  How  seldom  do  we  follow  up  those  who  think  that  they 
are  born  again,  to  ascertain  whether  the  light  is  with  them ;  whether 
they  are  luminous !  How  seldom  do  we  inquire  whether  parents  find 
it  easier  to  get  along  with  their  children  than  they  did  before  they 
united  with  the  church  ,  whether  the  companions  of  young  people 
find  them  more  mellow,  more  rich-hearted,  more  generous,  moro 
manly,  pleasanter  to  be  with  ;  whether  men  are  more  attractive  after 
they  have  joined  the  church  than  they  were  before  ! 

I  have  known  men  who  were  genial,  winning,  hajDpiness-prodiKv 
ing.  They  were  converted,  and  they  joined  the  church,  and  then  thev 
became  crustaceous,  self-centred,  full  of  thoughts  of  a  noble  lifi'. 
They  withdrew  from  all  pleasure.  They  withdrew  much  from  society. 
They  turned  their  attention  to  weightier  things. 

I  tell  you  that  there  is  nothing  in  this  world  which  a  man  can  so 
ill  afford  to  turn  away  from,  as  producing  happiness  by  the  power 
of  a  true  Christian  spirit  of  love ;  and  when  a  man  has  gone  into  the 
service  of  God  ostensibly  and  externally,  and  is  less  sweet,  less  gen- 
ial, less  happiness-producing  than  he  was  before,  there  is  something 
wrong.  He  has  made  a  mistake  somewhere — and  the  worst  mistake 
that  he  could  make.  He  has  made  the  mistake  of  setting  aside  the 
principle  of  benevolence. 

When,  then,  we  are  bringing  men  into  the  kingdom  of  God  ;  when 
we  are  indoctrinating  them  into  Christian  truth,  not  less  should  Ave 
tell  them  of  the  great  doctrines  ;  not  less  should  we  hold  up  before 
them  the  important  element  of  manhood  to  be  perfected  in  Christ 
J«esus  ;  not  less  should  we  inspire  them  with  heroic  enterprise  in  do- 
ing good ;  but  there  are  thousands  of  men  who  are  attempting  to  do 
good,  who  never  liad  it  enter  into  their  minds  that  they  Avere  to  viake 
happiness.  They  do  not  make  it  at  home.  They  do  not  make  it  in 
the  shop,  among  their  companions.  They  do  not  make  it  on  the  side- 
walk, in  those  that  walk  Avith  them.  They  do  not,  Avherever  they  are, 
exhale  happiness.  Yet  they  want  to  do  good.  They  will  task  thera- 
•selves ;  they  will  carry  burdens  ;  they  will  bear  cares  ;  they  Avill  lay 
foundations  operose.  These  things  are  not  wrong  nor  unwise ;  but 
the  art  of  making  the  eye  and  the  tongue  and  the  hand  confer  happi- 
ness on  men  has  not  entered  into  their  minds. 


3 1  8  MAKING  OTHEBS  HAPPY. 

You  never  can  make  the  caraelia  worth  what  the  rose  is;  because 
the  camelia,  though  perfectly  symmetrical,  is  cold  and  odorless.  With- 
out perfume,  or  anything  to  recommend  it  but  its  symmetry,  it  lies 
before  you,  saying,  "Did  you  ever  see  anything  so  perfect  as  I  am  .f"' 
The  rose  is  as  beautiful ;  but,  oh  !  the  whole  room,  to-day,  will  be 
filled  with  the  fragrance  of  a  tea-rose,  though  but  one  blossom  is 
opening.  And  no  man's  heart  should  be  a  camelia-heart.  Men's 
hearts  should  be  rose-hearts,  that  blossom  in  them,  and  sweeten  with 
flowers  the  whole  air. 

If  I  were  to  carry  home  this  subject  to  the  household,  are  there 
not  many  families  that  would  bear  some  reformation  ?  Are  there 
not  fathers  whose  good-nature  does  not  dawn  upon  them  until  after 
breakfast  ?  Are  there  not  mothers  who  find  fault  with  everything 
till  they  have  swallowed  their  cup  of  tea  ?  Are  there  not  many  who 
are  wound  up  late  in  the  day  ?  Are  there  not  many  families  where 
there  is  altercation  among  the  children,  and  quarreling  between  the 
children  and  the  parents  ?  Are  there  not  many  households  where 
there  are  little  feuds  that  are  kept  up  from  day  to  day,  and  from 
week  to  week,  and  where  the  adversaries  are  watching  each  other, 
and  waiting  for  a  chance  to  pay  ofi"  the  indignities  that  they  have  re- 
ceived ?  Are  there  not  many  families  where,  though  there  may  be 
incidental  kindnesses  (they  do  not  object  to  these),  the  thought  is, 
how  to  come  up  one  with  another  ;  how  to  pay  off  some  grudge  ?  On 
the  other  hand,  how  many  households  are  there  that  call  themselves 
Christians,  and  have  a  right  to,  because  all  day  long  each  one  is  shin- 
ing on  the  others;  because  each  one  is  removing  obstructions,  taking 
away  attritions,  smoothing  asperities,  and  seeking  to  make  all  amiable 
and  all  happy?     Such  are  Christian  households. 

Now,  is  there  nothing  in  your  household  to  change  ?  Is  there  noth- 
ing in  your  disposition  to  rectify  ?  Is  there  nothing  in  your  purpose 
to  be  made  different  ?  Is  it  an  aim  that  you  have  constantly  before  your 
mind,  to  so  carry  yourself  that  every  one  in  your  presence  shall  go 
away  feeling  that  for  a  time,  at  any  rate,  he  has  been  made  happy  ? 
Beautiful  natures  are  they — and  there  are  such  natures — which  sei^d 
out  to  all  who  approach  their  coasts  the  fragrance  of  the  land. 

When,  after  the  long,  loathsome  voyage,  I  entered  the  channel, 
and  saw,  dim,  upon  the  horizon,  the  blue  line  of  shore,  and  smelled 
the  strange  odor  in  the  air,  I  said  to  my  noble  friend,  Capt.  Knight, 
"  What  is  this  smell  ?"  "  Bless  your  heart !"  said  he,  "  it  is  the  land 
smelV  All  the  smells-  of  the  sea  put  together  were  never  so  sweet 
as  the  land-smell.  Afar  off  the  land  was  ;  it  lay  like  a  little  ribbon 
on  the  horizon ;  and  yet,  it  sent  its  odor  clear  out  to  where  we  were. 

There  are  persons  so  lovely  that  you  cannot  go  near  to  them  with- 


MAKING  OTHERS  HAP  FY.  319 

out  perceiving  that  they  exhale  gladness  and  chocr  and  happiness. 
Blessed  are  such  !     Blessed  are  the  happiness-makers  ! 

How  much  would  neighbors  rise  in  value,  and  how  much  would  I 
neighbors  rise  in  beauty,  if  all  should  lay  aside  habits  of  criticism, 
and  neighborhood  iscandal,  and  petty  feuds,  and  ridicule !  And  if  men 
should  study  the  things  that  make  for  peace,  and  the  things  that  make 
for  happiness,  everybody  trying  to  make  everybody  else  happy,  what 
a  revolution  there  would  be  ! 

I  believe  in  revivals ;  but  I  have  never  known  any  revivals  that 
did  not  need  to  have  other  revivals  in  them.  I  have  known  men  re- 
vived from  intemperance  and  from  wickedness,  who  went  into  church- 
es and  into  neighborhoods  where  they  set  themslves  up  on  their  or- 
thodoxy and  their  propriety,  and  carried  themselves  so  unsocially,  so 
critically,  and  oftentimes  so  offensively,  that  they  exerted  no  happi- 
ness-producing power.  No  person  has  drunk  in  the  spirit  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  who  does  not  make  other  persons  happier  when  he 
comes  to  them. 

It  is  not  enough,  then,  for  us  to  ask,  "  Am  I  true  ?  Am  I  just  ? 
Am  I  honest?  Am  1  religious?"  The  question  for  us  is,  "Am  I  every 
day  a  maker  of  happiness  ?"  God  is.  All  holy  spirits  iA  heaven  are. 
When  I  think  of  heaven,  I  do  not  think  of  angels  standing  like  wax 
candles  in  long  altar-rows,  singing  hymns  of  praise :  I  think  of  saintly 
life,  of  angelic  life,  the  sweetest,  the  gayest,  the  most  joyous,  the 
most  full  of  every  mood  of  fancy  and  of  goodness.  I  think  of  beings 
that  carry  light  in  the  eye,  and  joy  in  the  heart,  and  ecstasy  in  every 
touch.  Are  we  going  there  with  our  sordid  natures ;  with  our  coarse 
touch ;  with  our  selfish  instincts ;  with  our  unsubdued  pride ;  with 
our  uncombed  and  disheveled  vanity  ?  Let  us  be  followers  of  Jesus, 
who  did  not  please  himself,  but  who  left,  by  the  lips  of  his  apostle, 
the  declaration,  Let  every  one  of  us  please  his  NEiGHiiOR,  for  his 

GOOD,   TO    EDIFICATION?" 


320  MAKING  OTEEBS  JUAPFY. 

PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

"We  rejoice  in  the  thought  of  thy  being,  O  Lord  our  God.  There  is  none 
other  beside  thee.  There  is  need  of  none  other.  Thou  art  sovereign  and 
infinite  in  all  excellence.  What  thou  art,  and  what  is  the  measure  of  thy 
being,  we  cannot  understand.  Nor  by  searching  can  we  find  thee  out  unto 
perfection.  But  we  know  that  thou  wilt  differ  from  our  thought  only  in 
being  nobler,  and  more  full  of  love  and  wisdom  and  grace.  "When  we  look 
upon  things  most  fair  and  comely  on  the  earth  on  which  we  tread,  and  know 
that  they  spring  from  thy  ;;hought ;  when  we  behold  what  are  the  experi- 
ences of  tiie  human  soul  in  its  best  estate  we  rejoice  to  believe  that  the  One 
who  hath  fashioned,  and,  from  age  to  age,  distributed  such  things,  mvist  be 
himself  transcendent  in  them  all.  More  glorious  than  earthly  glory,  more 
noble  in  love  than  all  the  experience  of  love  among  men,  art  thou.  We  yet 
stoop  so  low  that  we  bear  with  us  something  of  the  earth  from  wliich  we 
sprang.  Oi)aque  in  our  af  action,  not  able  to  redeem  ourselves  from  the 
things  which  we  subsist  upon,  how  can  we  find  in  our  mutable  and  varying 
affection,  that  which  shall  be  the  measure  of  thine,  or  that  which  shall  sug- 
gest the  excellence  which  is  in  thee  ?  We  know  that  thou  art  true ;  but 
what  truth  is  in  its  boundlessness,  we  cannot  imagine.  We  know  that  thou 
art  just ;  but  from  the  adulterated  justce,  so  full  of  selfishness  and  passion, 
that  we  have  beheld  upon  earth,  how  can  we  learn  the  justice  of  love  ?  We 
know  that  thou  art  love;  but  who  among  the  sons  of  men  have  known  any 
such  disinterestedness  of  love  as  would  be  a  fit  example  of  thy  loving 
nature  ?  We  know  that  thou  dost  abound  in  all  excellence;  but  our  thought 
of  excellence  is  so  poor  that  we  diminish  thee  by  thiniiing  of  thea  When 
we  see  thee  as  thou  art,  we  shall  look  back  upon  our  past  knowledge  here  as 
one  who  has  reached  the  estate  of  manhood  looks  back  upon  the  knowledge 
of  his  childhood.  We  see  tlirough  a  glass  darkly  and  shall  be  rebuked  for 
our  present  presumption  when  we  seo  thee  face  to  face. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  unto  us,  then,  a  humble  and  a  continually 
yearning  desire  to  have  in  ourselves  such  moods  and  such  dispositions  as 
shall  minister  to  us  better,  holier  and  ti'uer  thoughts  of  God.  As  thou  hast 
preserved  us  by  thy  power,  so  enrich  us  by  thy  grace.  Fill  us  with  all  gen- 
tleness and  meekness  and  truthfulness.  Grant  that  we  may  abound  in  those 
things  in  which  thou  dost  delight,  and  put  far  away  from  us  those  things 
which  thou  hatest.  May  we  learn  to  cure  ourselves  of  p^ide,  and  of  selfish- 
ness, and  of  cruelty,  and  of  envyings,  and  of  jealousies,  and  of  avarice,  and 
of  wickedness.  May  we  put  on  the  new  man  created  in  righteousness  in 
Christ  Jesus. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  strengthen  us  from  day  to  day  in  our  several 
spheres  of  labor.  Thou  hast  ordained  our  path,  and  thou  knowest  the  inner- 
most thought  afar  off;  thou  seest  the  beginnings  of  fe3ling;  and  we  are 
eltogether  naked  and  open  before  thee,  with  whom  we  have  to  do.  And  we 
rejoice  in  it,  and  commit  ourselves  to  thy  care,  and  are  glad  that  it  is  God, 
and  not  man,  that  deals  with  us. 

And  now,  O  Lord  our  God,  as  we  have  been  borne  upon  the  bosom  of  thy 
love  and  mercy  in  days  gone  by,  there  still  will  we  rest.  In  thee  will  we 
confide  ;  in  thee  we  will  be  strong. 

And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  prepare  us  for  the  unknown 
future,  for  the  passage  of  death,  and  for  immortality  and  glory  in  heaven. 
Draw  near  to  all  in  thy  presence  who  specially  need  thy  comforting  hand. 
If  there  be  those  A^ho  are  bereaved ;  if  there  be  those  who  go  through  baths 
of  sorrow;  if  there  be  those  over  whom  pass  clouds  and  storms ;  if  there  be 
those  who  are  sick  at  heart  from  hope  deferred ;  if  there  be  those  who  are  in 


MAKING  OTHEUS  HAFFY,  321 

great  perplexity;  if  there  be  those  who  are  friendless ;  if  there  be  any  that 
mourn  the  distance  which  there  is  between  thyself  and  them,  and  who  come 
to  thee  for  counsel  and  help ;  if  there  be  those  who  sit  in  the  darkness  of 
remorse,  as  under  the  shadow  of  death — O  Lord!  we  pray  for  all  of  them. 
We  pray  that  by  the  Holy  Spirit  they  may  be  comforted,  and  that  thy 
presence  may  be  to  them  as  the  light  in  the  morning  is  to  the  watcher  of 
the  night. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  all  those  In  our 
midst  who  are  strangers  in  a  strange  land.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  consider 
them  to-day,  and  give  them  a  double  portion  from  our  Father's  table.  And 
if  their  thoughts  go  backward  to  those  whom  they  have  left  far  away, 
sanctify  to  them  their  separation,  and  sustain  them,  and  restore  them  again, 
by  and  by,  to  those  wliom  they  love,  witnesses  of  God's  great  goodness. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  accept  the  thanks  of  all  those  whom  thou  hast 
deUvered,  for  their  deliverance :  of  all  those  whom  thou  hast  raised  up  from 
beds  of  sickness;  of  all  those  who  have  escaped  from  great  fears  of  evil;  ol 
all  those  who  have  been  in  perils  of  storm  upon  the  sea,  and  have  been 
brought  safely  to  land.  Will  the  Lord  hear  all  those  who  render  their  vows 
to-day.  May  thy  blessing  rest  upon  all  those  who  are  laboring  to  benefit 
others,  whether  it  be  parents  for  their  children,  or  teachers  for  children  in 
Bchools.  We  pray  that  the  Spiiit  of  the  Lord  may  be  with  them  and  blesa 
them  in  all  their  labors  of  love. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  that  preach  the  Gospel  to-day,  every- 
where. Give  them  strengih  of  body  and  strength  of  heart.  As  their  day  is, 
so  may  their  strength  be  also. 

Bring  together  the  scattered  forms  of  thy  Church.  May  there  be  unity  of 
spirit.  May  the  hearts  of  thy  people,  united  in  love,  come  up  before  thee  in 
cooperative  desire  and  labor.  We  pray  for  thy  kingdom  all  over  the  earth 
in  which  dwelleth  righteousness. 

May  wars  cease.  May  all  superstition  and  ignorance  be  purged  out  of  the 
world.  May  the  earth  receive  its  long-delayed  promise,  and  Jesus  reign  a 
thousand  years.  And  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  a,nd  the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises 
evermore.    Amen. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMOK 

Our  Father,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  teach  us  the  inward  life — the  true  life 
of  Cliristian  love.  May  we  love  thee.  May  we  be  inspired  with  the  noblest 
ambition.  Bear  us  beyond  the  sphere  of  sense  and  into  the  realm  of  faith. 
May  we  be  filled  with  philanthropy.  May  we  seek  to  do  good  that  we  do  not 
pee  in  the  doing.  May  we  be  felt  afar  off— further  than  our  own  hand  can 
reach.  And  by  our  minds,  by  our  influence,  may  we  build  foundations 
whose  superstructure  we  shall  never  see  in  this  life.  May  we  seek  to  labor 
in  season  and  out  of  season,  admonishing,  rebuking,  with  all  long-suffering 
and  gentleness.  But  in  all  tilings  may  we  be  clothed  in  charity  as  with  a 
garment.  Having  put  on  all  other  things,  may  we  put  on,  to  clasp  them, 
the  girdle  of  true  benevolence.  And  teach  us  so  to  carry  our  dispositions, 
our  thoughts  and  feelings,  that  there  shall  ray  out  light  perpetually  from 
ourselves  upon  all  that  are  with  us.  May  we  grow  more  gentle,  more 
heavenly,  more  like  our  Master,  until  we  are  called  home  above,  where  we 
shall  need  no  more  teaching,  and  no  more  admonition.  And  to  the  Father, 
the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  evermore     Amen. 


XX. 

The  Power  of  Humble  Fidelity 


INVOCATION. 

Most  merciful  and  gracious  art  thou,  O  Lord  our  God!  and  therefore  we 
are  alive,  and  before  thee,  and  are  in  hope,  and  look  forward  for  that  benig- 
nity and  for  those  blessings  that  have  greeted  us  ever  since  we  were  bom. 
For  we  dre  witnesses  that  thy  sun  doth  rise  upon  the  just  and  the  unjust, 
upon  the  good  and  bad.  Not  when  we  have  striven  most  for  rectitude  hast 
thou  been  kindest;  for  thou  hast  won  us,  or  sought  to  win  us;  and  by  ten 
thousand  influences  hitherto  thou  hast  inspired  us  with  the  desire  of  rising 
to  the  things  that  are  acceptable  in  thy  sight.  We  come  asking  that  thou 
wilt  fill  us  with  thine  own  life.  Draw  our  hearts  to  thine.  Cleanse  us 
by  the  pulsations  of  thy  life.  And  grant  that  the  services  of  thy  house- 
its  prayer,  its  songs  of  praise,  its  instruction,  its  meditation,  its  fellow- 
Bliip— may  be  acceptable  in  thy  sight,  through  Christ  our  Redeemer.    Avien. 

ao 


THE  POWER  OE  HUMBLE  EIDELITT. 


"And  Jesus  sat  over  against  the  treasury,  and  beheld  how  the  people  cast 
money  into  the  treasury :  and  many  that  were  rich  cast  in  much.  And  there 
came  a  certain  poor  widow,  and  she  threw  in  two  mites,  which  make  a  farth- 
ing. And  he  called  unto  him  his  disciples  and  saith  unto  them,  Verily,  I  say 
unto  you.  That  this  poor  widow  hath  cast  more  in  than  all  they  which  have 
cast  into  the  treasury:  for  all  they  did  cast  in  of  their  abundance;  but  she 
of  her  want  did  cast  in  all  that  she  had,  even  all  her  living."— Mark  xii.41-44. 


We  are  to  make  much  allowance  for  those  rapturous  expressions 
that  we  find  even  in  the  Old  Testament,  respecting  the  beauty  of 
Jerusalem. 

"  Beautiful  for  situation,  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth  is  Mount  Zion,  the 
city  of  our  God." 

I  should  have  esteemed  this  old  people  less,  if  they  had  not 
thought  that  their  home  and  their  city  were  more  beautiful  than  any 
other  in  the  world.  Do  we  not  do  the  same  thing  ?  Do  we  not  in- 
dulge in  gentle  exaggerations  as  resj)ects  the  flavor  of  the  v/ater  of 
our  father's  well  ?  None  other  in  the  world  was  like  it,  to  our  think- 
ing. And  the  apples  that  grew  in  the  orchard — how  excellent  they 
were  !  Nowhere  shall  we  find  again  such  apples  of  paradise  as  we 
ate  in  our  youth.  And  the  very  brook,  and  the  overhanging  trees — 
yea,  the  brown  old  house,  from  which  the  red  has  almost  been  beaten 
by  rains  and  winds — where  shall  we  find  anything,  on  the  whole,  more 
charming  to  our  eyes  ?  For  it  is  love  that  is  the  artist,  and  carves, 
and  throws  a  strange  beauty  over  everything  that  the  heart  adopts. 
And  so  the  homely  old  cradle,  and  the  grotesque  pump,  and  the 
queer  furnishing  of  the  house,  and  the  ordinary  tree,  and  the  com- 
mon well  of  common  watei' — these  things  are  all  magnified  and  glori- 
fied in  the  afiections  of  our  childhood. 

We  do  not  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  Jews  thought  there  never 
was  another  such  city  as  Jerusalem — and  in  some  respects  there  never 
was.  But  they  thought  it  was  wonderful  in  beauty.  It  was  very 
far  from  it.  Probably  there  is  but  one  way  in  which  we  can  come 
upon  that  city,  and  have  it  seem  very  comely,  and  produce  any  im- 
pression, although  our  imagination  is  charmed  with  associations  of 

Stttojat  Morning,  Jan.  23, 1871.  Lesson  :  Isa.  LVn.   Hymns  (Plymouth  Collection) : 
Nos.  40,  813,  879. 


324  TEJS  FOWEB  OF  EUMBLF  FIDFLITY. 

every  description,  and  comes,  not  only  with  a  painter's  zeal,  but  with  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  historian  and  the  devotee,  to  find  everything  there 
that  is  stately  and  beautiful.  It  is  very  common-place  except  as  you 
go  in  from  the  East.  From  that  side  it  is  striking.  Looked  upon 
from  the  hills,  upon  the  far  side  of  which  Bethany  stands — looked 
upon  from  the  valley  of  the  Kedron,  Jerusalem  is  still  very  striking 
and  impressive. 

It  was  upon  that  very  side  that  the  temple  stood.  And  when  we 
speak  of  the  temple,  you  must  dismiss  from  your  mind  all  conception 
of  some  Grecian  temple,  or  of  some  Gothic  cathedral,  or  of  any  other 
building  such  as  you  see  in  modern  times.  For  the  temple  was  not 
so  much  a  building  as  a  complex  citadel.  It  was  a  system  of  courts, 
open  mostly  to  the  heaven,  and  sui-rounded  by  massive  walls,  mag- 
nificent in  the  size  of  the  stones,  and  in  their  beauty.  Rising  and 
covering  over  the  summit  of  one  part  of  the  hill,  court  within  court, 
the  temple  system  stood.  The  Temple  proper  was  quite  a  small 
building,  comparatively  speaking,  upon  the  very  top  level,  while 
graded  all  the  way  down  from  it  were  these  successive,  and  for  the 
most  part  open  courts,  surrour*ded  by  walls  made  gorgeous  by  what- 
ever treasure  could  confer.  And  when  the  Jews  drev/  near  from  the 
East  to  their  favorite  haunt  or  place  of  worship,  it  presented,  in  the 
blaze  of  the  sun,  a  magnificent  shining  spectacle. 

It  was  in  this  temple  that  the  most  of  Christ's  instruction  was 
given  which  took  place  in  Jerusalem.  It  was  not  according  to  a  cus- 
tom of  the  nation,  nor  according  to  climatic  conditions,  that  instruc- 
tion should  take  place  in  the  streets ;  and  still  less,  that  it  should  take 
place  in  buildings,  of  which  there  were  none  large  enough  to  hold  the 
masses  of  persons  who  were  perpetually  following  the  footsteps  of 
our  Master. 

The  outer  court  of  the  temple  was  called  "  The  Court  of  the  Gen- 
tiles," because  the  Gentiles  were  permitted  to  go  up  into  it  (they 
were  permitted  to  go  no  further  under  pain  of  death).  On  the  south 
side  of  the  base  of  the  quadrangle  was  Herod's  porch — a  very  mag- 
nificent covered  way.  It  is  supposed  that  in  that  porch,  which  was 
open  on  the  temple  side,  though  it  was  closed  on  the  side  looking  to 
the  south,  Christ  principally  taught  his  disciples.  For  synagogues 
were  held  there;  and  there  were  schools  there — peripatetic  schools; 
and  throngs  of  men  resorted  thither,  as  with  us  they  resort  on  mar- 
ket-days to  the  Exchange.  There  were  all  sorts  of  Exchanges  there. 
And  there  it  was,  as  I  said,  that  Christ  mostly  taught. 

But  as  you  ascended,  step  by  step,  some  fifteen  feet,  you  came 
into  a  second  series  of  courts.  And  in  one  of  these  was  placed  the 
treasury.      It  seems  that  on   one  occasion   the  Master  was  sitting 


THE  FOWEB  OF  HUMBLE  FIDELITY.  325 

there  with  the  disciples,  or  near  them,  watching  what  took  place. 
And  what  did  take  place  ? 

There  were  Jews  passing,  an  endless  procession  of  them,  and  de- 
positing in  the  chest  or  chests  that  were  set  there  their  annual  gifts 
or  offerings.  For  the  support  of  the  temple-service  these  gifts  were 
made.  Not  alone  from  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  but  from  the 
world — the  then  civilized  wox-ld — flowed  gifts  ;  and  probably  more 
came  from  outside  the  bounds  of  Palestine  than  from  within  them. 
For,  at  this  time  the  Jews  had  been  brought  so  much  under  the  do- 
minion of  the  Greeks,  that  they  had  become  commercialized.  And 
having  been  driven  hither  and  thither  by  the  conflicts  of  revolution, 
they  had  been,  as  it  were,  drained  out  of  the  land. :  so  that  tliere  was 
no  conspicuous  city  on  the  globe  where  commerce  held  its  marts, 
that  the  Jews  were  not  beginning  to  be  known  in  it. 

Thus  Christ  saw,  undoubtedly,  Jews  coming  from  every  city  in 
Asia  where  they  had  trafiicked,  bringing  their  wealth  back  to  their 
native  land,  and  to  their  beautiful  temple.  He  saw  men  from  Alex- 
andria, and  Cairo,  and  all  the  other  Egyptian  cities ;  He  saw  men 
from  Greece,  and  Rome,  and  from  the  furthermost  parts  of  Italy, 
coming  with  annual,  or  biennial,  or  more  or  less  frequent  gifts  in 
their  I  a  ids.  And  there  were  among  them  many  who  had  magnifi- 
cent wealth;  many  who  were  princely  in  their  possessions.  And 
they  were  accompanied  by  trains  which  corresponded  with  their 
wealth.  They  had  with  them  retinues  of  servants  to  bring  their 
offerings.  One  and  another  and  another  stepped  forward.  And 
there  were  the  admiring  spectators.  This  was  of  Asia ;  and  this 
was  of  Babylon ;  and  this  was  of  Ephesus ,  and  this  was  of  Greece 
or  Rome. 

So,  one  by  one  they  came.  It  was  a  great  day  of  gifts.  One 
train  after  another  swept  by,  and  these  gifts  were  deposited  in 
the  resounding  chest — ^bars  of  gold,  bullion,  great  masses  of  the  pre- 
cious metal — often  requiring  the  chest  to  be  taken  away  and  changed. 

While  this  was  going  on,  there  came,  like  a  very,  very  small 
punctuation  point,  a  poor  creature,  hesitating  between  the  grandees, 
with  worn  sandals,  and  with  garments  tattered,  and  with  her  head 
bowed.  Standing  meekly  aside  and  watching  her  opportunity,  she 
at  last  slipped  in  her  offering.  So  small  was  it,  that  you  might  have 
listened  and  you  could  not  have  heard  it  chink.  It  is  said  to  have 
been  "  two  mites."  Upon  computation  it  may  be  found  that  a  mite 
was  one-twentieth  part  of  a  penny,  so  that  her  two  mites  amounted 
to  one-tenth  of  a  penny.  Therefore  it  was  almost  like  dust  in  her 
hand ;  and  I  am  not  exaggerating  when  I  say  that  you  could  not 
have  heard  it  fall  into  the  chest — especially  after  the  ringing  of  the 
plump  bullion  of  some  big  Jew. 


326  TEE  FOWEB  OF  HUMBLE  FIDELITY. 

She  dropped  in  her  offering,  and  quickly  drew  aside  and  went 
away,  and  did  not  know  that  anybody  saw  her,  as  probably  nobody 
did  among  the  Jews  ;  and  did  not  know  that  any  one  cared  for  her,  as 
in  all  that  throng  probably  none  did,  save  One  ;  and  certainly  did 
not  know  that  after  two  thousand  years,  her  name  being  lost,  her 
deed  of  heroism  would  be  the  theme  of  instruction  and  of  inspiration 
to  you  and  to  me  to-day,  as  it  has  been  to  tens  of  thousands  of 
Christians  since  then.  This  poor,  meanly  clad,  solitary  widow  threw 
in  her  tenth  part  of  a  penny  and  retired.  And  the  narrative 
goes  on. 

"  He  called  unto  him  his  disciples." 

They,  however,  had  not  seen  the  act ;  or  they  were  but  just  within 
glancing  distance.  He  beckoned  to  them  and  pointed  out  what 
was  done.    And  he  said  unto  them, 

"  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  that  this  poor  widow  hath  cast  more  in  than  all 
they  which  have  cast  into  the  treasury." 

And  then  he  gave  his  reasons  : 

"  For  they  did  cast  in  of  their  abundance ;  but  she  of  her  want  did  cast 
in  all  that  she  had,  even  all  her  living." 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  she  had  had  that  day  no  food  ;  that  she 
had  denied  herself  She  had  thrown  in  all  she  had  with  which  to  buy 
sustenance.  And  Christ,  who  knew  all  things,  and  needed  not  that 
any  should  tell  him  anything,  saw  this  in  all  its  beauty  and  sim- 
plicity and  moral  significance.  He  could  not  lose  such  a  text  as 
that.  And,  calling  his  disciples  to  him,  he  instructed  them  in  one  of 
the  most  important  moral  truths  that  can  be  presented  to  the  mind 
of  man. 

This  action  on  her  part  was  an  action  of  great  disinterestedness; 
for  she  knew  perfectly  well  that  if  she  gave  nothing  none  would 
miss  it.  She  knew  perfectly  well  that  if  she  gave  something  none 
would  notice  it.  She  knew  perfectly  well  that  the  little  which  she 
could  give  would  be  of  no  importance,  in  itself,  to  the  treasury  or  to 
the  temple.  Besides,  it  was  all  that  she  had  to  subsist  on  that  day  ; 
and  as  she  gave  that,  it  must  have  been  to  meet  a  want  in  her  own 
soul,  of  generosity.  She  could  not  endure  to  have  the  service  of  the 
temple  go  on,  and  she  bear  no  part  in  it.  Though  Avhat  she  could 
give  was  very  little  indeed,  that  she  must  be  permitted  to  give,  for 
the  sake  of  her  own  feelings  rather  than  on  account  of  its  value. 

It  was  not  literally  true  that  she  gave  more  than  all  of  them ; 
but  she  gave  more  compared  to  what  she  had  to  give.  Nor  was  her 
gift  equal  to  theirs  when  its  direct  uses  were  considered.  Their  gifts 
were  not  to  be  despised.  There  was  a  good  reason  why  gifts  should 
be  made,  and  unquestionably  a  thousand  pounds  would  be  more  in 
maintaining  the  service  of  the  sanctuary  than  the  mites  of  the  poor 
widow.     But  Christ  was  not  measuring  value  in  that  direction.     He 


TRIi  FOWBB  OF  HUMBLE  FIDELITY.  327 

was  making  the  action  tlie  test  of  disposition.  It  was  not  what  the 
pDwer  of  money  was ;  it  was  not  what  it  could  do  upon  the  world  ; 
it  was  the  disposition  which  went  with  the  money,  that  Christ  was 
measuring.  He  was  measuring  its  force,  its  magnitude.  He  was 
measuring,  therefore,  by  the  principle  of  generosity.  And  the  small- 
est gift  of  that  day,  measured  thus,  was  larger  than  the  greatest  gift. 

For,  do  you  suppose,  that  among  all  those  who  bestowed  their  gifts 
at  that  time,  before  her,  and  after  her,  there  was  a  wngle  other  one 
who  gave  from  so  pure  a  motive,  from  so  deep  a  love,  and  at  such 
sacrifice  ?  There  were  gifts,  many  of  them  of  vanity,  many  of  them 
of  pride,  many  of  them  of  superstition,  many  of  them  of  mere  custom 
and  necessity ;  but  hers  was  a  voluntary  gift  of  love.  And 
that  fact  consecrated  it.  Love  imparts  a  value  to  a  gift  which  noth- 
ing but  love  can  stamp  upon  it. 

1.  This  is  a  striking  illustration  of  our  Lord's  sympathy  for  the 
heart  of  human  life  instead  of  for  its  exterior.  He  was  sitting  in  the 
very  culmination  of  the  pride  and  beauty  of  the  Jewish  ceremonial. 
He  was  surrounded  by  the  garmented  priests.  There  were  the 
learned  men  of  his  time.  There  was  the  sovereign  authority  of  his 
nation.  Around  about  him  were  men  from  every  clime.  There  was 
great  stir,  great  interest,  great  excitement  among  them.  He  looked 
upon  all  these  things;  and  what  he  thought  is  not  recorded  ;  but  we 
may  well  conclude,  when  this  was  the  one  feature  of  the  whole 
scene,  which  he  fixed  his  eye  upon  and  dwelt  upon,  that  he  was  not 
attracted  by  the  sumptuous  trains  of  these  gorgeous  gift-bringers.  He 
did  not  look  upon  all  the  unworldliness  of  these  religionists  with 
interest.  He  saw  among  them  that  which  interpreted  the  innermost 
and  the  best  nature.  That  which  was  highest,  that  which  was 
true,  that  which  was  piteous,  that  which  was  humane,  that  which 
was  gentle,  that  which  was  generous — this  was  what  he  saw.  And 
all  the  more  if  no  one  else  was  likely  to  see  it.  It  was  the  disposi- 
tion of  Christ,  not  as  man,  but  as  God,  to  bring  himself  into  sym- 
pathy with  that  side  of  human  life  which  is  the  most  piteous  and  the 
most  necessitous.  Where  human  life  needs  the  most  sympathy,  and 
where  usually  it  is  the  most  barren — there  is  where  Christ  is  more 
likely  to  be  found  than  anywhere  else. 

Interpreting  this  trait  which  we  behold  in  his  earthly  life  into 
divinity,  or  into  the  other  life,  it  becomes  a  trait  of  trausct indent 
importance;  and  we  begin  to  understand  something  of  that  divine 
feeling.  For  now,  in  heaven,  as  then  upon  earth,  only  in  larger  cir- 
cles, and  with  grander  developments,  the  same  disposition  is  in  Christ 
to  be  in  sympathy  with  things  that  are  lowly  and  needy,  things  that 
are  hel^^lesg,  and    things  that  are  piteous.    Where  human  strength 


328  THU  POWEB  OF  HUMBLE  FIDELITY, 

usually  disdains  to  notice — there  is  the  very  point  at  which  divine 
strength  notices  most.  Where  men  see  least  to  be  admired, 
under  uncouth  forms  of  helplessness  ;  and  where  there  is  a  want 
of  productive  power,  and  an  absence  of  positive  force  of  any 
kind  ;  where  being  seems  ground  down  to  its  lowest  estate — there, 
men  look  with  scarcely  veiled  contempt,  and  esteem  things  to  be 
vulgar  :  but  there  is  where  Christ  looks  with  sympathy  and  com- 
passion. 

And  we  have  the  revelation  of  the  same  truth  in  the  Gospel  of 
Isaiah,  from  which  it  was  borrowed — for  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  may 
as  well  be  called  the  first  Gospel — where  Christ  declares  that  he 
dwells  with  the  humble  and  contrite  and  broken  in  heart. 

This  revelation,  which  was  made  in  the  early  days,  and  which  was 
confirmed  by  the  example  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  put  upon  the 
whole  Divine  government  a  new  aspect  to  us,  of  great  comfort  and 
encouragement.  For,  while  we  see  things  in  this  world  going  to 
the  strong  hand;  while  philosophy  takes  care  of  the  thinker;  while 
fame  takes  care  of  the  successful ;  while  mammon  takes  care  of  the 
skilled  and  fortunate  ;  while  in  all  the  thoroughfares  of  life  the 
strong  crowd  the  weak  to  the  wall,  and  have  compassion  in  the  great 
battle  of  life  only  on  those  that  are  able  to  stand,  and  tread  down 
those  that  are  humbler  and  weaker,  it  is  well  to  know  that  there  is  a 
revelation  which  nature  does  not  make — a  revelation  of  the  heart  of 
God,  and  of  a  disposition  in  which  there  is  thought,  feeling,  desire, 
sympathy,  for  those  who  are  too  weak  to  take  care  of  themselveo  ; 
too  feeble  to  report  themselves  by  anything  that  they  can  do  among 
their  fellow-men.  If  human  life  takes  care  of  the  successful,  the 
Divine  government  takes  care  of  the  unsuccessful.  If  men  crown  the 
eminent,  God  crowns  the  lowly.  If  men  look  after  and  serve  those 
that  are  conspicuous,  God  searches  out  and  thinks  of  those  that  are 
inconspicuous  and  humble.  The  great  Eye  is  not  looking  out  for 
great  deeds  alone — though  they  are  recognized,  God  is  not  thinldng 
of  the  men  who  are  thinking  most  of  themselves,  nor  of  those  of  w)iom 
men  are  thinking  most.  God's  disposition  and  government  take  in 
the  great  under-class  of  men.  The  myriads  are  noted  and  registered 
whose  deeds  are  done  in  secret  in  this  world.  The  sorrows  of  those 
for  whom  no  men  sorrow ;  and  the  tears  of  those  that  wcop  in 
secret  places  ;  and  the  yearnings  of  those  that  have  no  answer  to 
their  desires ;  and  the  prayers  of  the  distressed  that  seem  to  die  in 
the  air,  rising  in  simple  petitions  or  on  the  Avings  of  song  ;  and  the 
experiences  of  those  that  seem  to  be  swept  hither  and  thither  by 
the  current  of  fortune  and  of  life,  as  the  dust  is  swept  by  the  whirl- 
wind on  the  summer  road — it  is  good  to  know  that  the  eye  of  God 


TEE  PO  WEB  OF  EUMBLE  FIDELITY.  329 

ever  looks  upon  these  things.  It  is  good  to  know  that  somebody 
takes  cave  of  the  neglected  ;  that  somebody  thinks  of  those  that  are 
unthought  of;  that  somebody,  whose  nature  is  all-powerful,  and  who 
is  all-glorious,  will,  by  and  by,  speedily  come  to  judgment,  and 
reward  his  own  whom  the  whole  world  despise. 

2.  Many  of  the  secret  fidelities  of  life  have  power  to  outlive,  in 
usefulness,  the  products  of  ambitious  desires  and  deeds.  All  the 
rich  gifts  of  the  temple  are  now  forgotten.  We  do  not  know  what 
princes  were  there.  We  do  not  know  what  rabbi  was  syllabled 
with  admiration  among  his  fellows,  on  that  day.  We  do  not  know 
what  eminent  man  of  wealth  that  had  traveled  from  afar  was 
pointed  out — yea  was  courted  and  caressed — on  account  of  his 
munificence.  The  only  person  who  has  come  down  to  us  is  the  one 
Avho  was  the  least  conspicuous,  and  the  least  known.  The  gentle 
light  of  that  example  shines  still.  Ten  thousand  there  were  of 
greater  mark  ;  but  only  she  lives.  And  all  the  ages  have  not 
buried  her.  All  illustrious  history  has  not  set  aside  that  simple  un- 
conscious act.  All  the  events  of  revolutions  and  upturnings  that 
have  hajDpened  since,  have  made  no  change  in  her  renown.  There  is 
the  temple ;  there  is  the  gorgeous  procession ;  there  is  the  poor  shuf- 
fling widow;  there  is  the  quiet  Christ,  over  against  her ;  there  is  the 
pleased  eye  ;  there  is  the  bouign  lip  ;  there  are  those  words  of 
regard  and  sympathy ;  and  they  will  sound  like  strains  of  music 
which  cannot  be  lost  out  of  life. 

How  little  she  thought  what  she  Avas  doing  !  How  little  she 
thought  how  much  she  was  enriching  the  world  !  Two  mites — one 
tenth  of  a  penny — she  threw  into  the  chest  ;  and  she  has  made  the 
world  richer  than  all  the  tributes  whicli  were  paid  that  year  in 
Jerusalem,  by  her  unconscious  humility,  and  by  her  simple  gener- 
osity and  benevolence. 

It  is  still  the  same.  We  think  those  gifts  most  influential  which 
have  most  of  record  ;  but  it  is  not  so.  I  believe  that  the  God  who 
made  this  case  so  eminent,  I  believe  that  that  ascended  Christ  who 
so  emphasized  this  little  history  that  it  has  been  fruit-bearing  for 
^  thousands  of  years,  still  administers  in  the  same  way.  And  while  he 
does  not  repudiate,  while  he  does  not  reject  the  services  that  are 
more  conspicuous,  and  that  have  their  echo  and  their  report,  I  believe 
that  those  things  which  will  be  most  blest  of  God,  as  will  be  seen 
at  the  revelation  of  the  last  day,  Avill  bo  the  things  which  have  been 
quite  unknown  in  this  world.  When  the  buried  things  shall  be 
brought  forth  ;  when  the  silent  thoughts  shall  have  some  exposition ; 
when  the  motives,  and  the  impulses,  and  the  deep  feelings,  and  the 
actions  to  which  they  lead,  shall  be  all  made  knoAvn  in  the  great 


330  TEE  POWER  OF  HUMBLE  FIDELITY 

revealiiiix  day  of  the  future ;  when  people  in  the  other  life  shall  be  in 
their  aspect  what  their  deeds  and  their  disi^ositions  make  them  to  be 
in  this  life,  then  it  will  be  found  that  those  who  are  last  here  will 
be  first  there,  and  that  those  who  are  first  here  will  be  last  there. 
While  many  a  proud  philanthropist  whose  name  is  carved  and  gilded 
over  and  over  and  over  again  will  scarcely  be  seen,  many  strange 
philanthropists  will  emerge  from  among  the  poor  and  needy,  and 
take  their  places  as  princes,  eminent  in  the  forefront  of  God's  glory. 

So  God  himself  works.  So  gives  he  a  pattern  for  us  to  work 
after.  It  is  not  the  thunder  which  makes  the  most  racket  that  does 
the  most  work.  The  things  in  this  world  that  are  accomplishing 
great  deeds  are  silent  things,  and  hidden  things.  And  we  are  told, 
in  a  kind  of  strange  parodox,  that  the  things  which  are  not,  are 
ordained  to  bring  to  nought  the  things  that  are.  The  most  incon- 
spicuous things  often  belong  to  God's  most  potential  working. 

The  root  neither  strives  nor  cries  ;  and  yet,  all  the  engines  of  all 
the  ships  and  shops  on  earth,  that  puif  and  creak  with  ponderous 
working,  are  not  to  be  compared  for  actual  power  with  the  roots  oi 
one  single  acre  of  ground  in  the  meadow.  All  the  vast  pumps  oi 
Harlem  Lake,  and  all  that  serve  our  needs,  adjoining,  are  not  to 
be  compared  for  force  with  that  might  which  inheres  in  one  single 
tree.  It  is  a  fact  revealed  only  to  those  who  study  natural  history, 
that  leaves,  that  vegetation,  that  dews,  and  rains,  and  heat,  that  the 
natural  attractions  which  prevail  in  the  world,  without  any  echo  or 
outward  report,  have  an  enormous  power  in  them,  and  that  they 
are  the  means  by  which  God  works.  He-  works  in  silence,  and  in- 
conspicuously, and  almost  hiddenly. 

And  so  they  work  importantly  who  work  by  thought,  by  love, 
by  zeal,  by  faith  unrevealed  ;  who  work  in  places  not  seen  by  the 
public  eye,  in  season  and  out  of  season,  from  the  mere  desire  to  do 
good,  and  not  from  the  mere  love  of  being  found  out  in  doing  it. 

Look  upon  your  scarfs,  so  brilliant.  The  color  shines  afar  ofi! 
Comely  it  is  in  the  vat  of  the  dyer.  Comely  it  is  on  the  shoulder  of 
beauty.  How  exquisite  is  the  dye  that  comes  from  the  cochineal 
insect.  And  yet,  how  small  is  that  insect — scarcely,  I  may  say,  so  big 
as  the  point  of  a  pin — which  feeds  so  inconspicuously  on  the  under 
side  of  the  leaf  ofthe  cactus,  nourishing  his  growth  quite  unconscious 
that  as  one  of  all  the  myriads  of  all  these  little  shining  points  will 
he  by  and  by  help  to  produce  those  glowing  colors  which  civiliza- 
tion and  refinement  will  make  so  meet  and  comely  in  distant  lands  ! 
So  it  is  with  good  deeds.  The  great  things  in  this  world  are  the  sum 
of  infinitesimal  little  things.  And  those  who  are  in  sympathy  with 
God  and  nature,  are  not  to  reject  in  men  the  ripening,  the  develop- 


I 


TEE  FOWEB  OF  HUMBLE  FIDELITY.  331 

ment  of  themselves  or  their  true  spiritual  life,  because  the  effect  is 
but  little.  That  effect  will  be  joined  to  other  things  which  are  like 
itself  obscure,  and  others  and  others  will  make  their  contributions  ; 
and  little  by  little  the  sum  of  these  specks  of  gold  will  make  masses 
of  gold  ;  little  by  little  these  small  insects  will  make  great  quanti- 
ties of  coloring  matter ;  little  by  little  small  things  will  become  large 
in  magnitude. 

Do  not  be  ashamed,  then,  to  live  in  humility,  if  you  fill  it  up  with 
fidelity.  Never  measure  the  things  that  you  do,  or  do  not,  by  the 
report  which  they  can  make.  Do  well  that  which  you  do ;  do  that 
which  is  right,  and  just,  and  good ;  and  do  not  stand  with  your  eye 
on  those  that  watch  you.  Do  the  things  which  shall  fill  your  heart 
with  a  sense  of  fidelity,  of  generosity,  and  of  obedience  to  God  ;  and 
then  let  God  take  care  of  the  result.  It  will  report  itself  by  and  by. 
The  widow  went  away,  after  depositing  her  gift  in  the  treasury ;  and 
I  do  not  suppose  that  she  knew  until  she  got  to  Heaven  that  Christ 
ever  thought  of  her.     So  it  may  be  with  you. 

3.  There  are  two  spheres  in  which  men  must  work.  The  first  is 
that  which  judges  of  causes  by  their  apparent  relations  to  the  end 
sought.  That  is  important ;  but  is  not  the  only  sphere.  It  is  the 
visible  material  sphere — the  one  which  belongs  to  the  region  of 
physical  cause  and  effect.  We  are  obliged  to  work  in  that  sphere 
according  to  its  own  laws. 

But  in  the  moral  sphere  men  must  judge  of  acts  by  their  relations 
to  the  motives  and  dispositions  which  inspire  them ;  and  they  are 
great  or  little,  not  according  to  what  they  do,  but  according  to  the 
sources  from  which  their  actions  spring. 

In  engineering,  that  only  is  great  which  does.  It  matters  not 
what  the  intention  is,  he  who  in  the  day  of  battle  is  not  victorious, 
is  not  saved  by  his  intention.  No  matter  how  wisely  you  mean,  il 
your  timber  is  not  squared  and  fitted  right,  the  result  is  not  right. 
In  the  outward  sphere  effect  measures  the  worth  of  the  plan.  In 
that  sphere  effect  must  always  be  measured  by  the  cause ;  and  the 
worth  of  the  cause  must  be  proved  by  the  effect.  And  that  is  the 
loAver  sphere. 

In  the  moral  sphere  it  is  the  other  way.  There,  no  matter 
what  the  effect  is,  you  do  not  measure  in  that  di^-ection.  Pray. 
Your  prayer  accomplishes  nothing  ?  The  measure  is  not  "  What 
did  it  do?"  Speak.  Your  words  fall  apparently  uncauglit  and 
unprofitable  ?  You  do  not  measure  in  that  direction.  You 
measure  the  other  way.  What  was  it  in  your  heart  to  do  ?  What 
was  your  purpose  ?  In  the  moral  sphere  we  look  at  the  bow — not  at 
the  target.     From  what  motive  did  the  soul  project  its  purpose  ? 


332  THJ^  FOWEB  OF  BUMBLE  FIDELITY. 

What  gave  that  sigh?  What  issued  that  speech?  What  created 
that  silence  ?  What  produced  that  moral  condition  ?  In  that 
sphere  the  heart  measures,  estimates,  registers. 

This  gives  rise  to  thoughts  which  perhaps  may  have  relation  to 
ourselves.  , 

There  are  many  who  will  work  if  you  will  show  them  that  their 
working  will  insure  immediate  good  results.  They  will  work  in 
the  moral  sphere  if  they  can  work  according  to  the  genius  of  the 
visible  or  the  physical  sphere.  They  Avill  work  if  they  can  do  what 
others  do.  They  do  not  work  because  they  love  to  work.  They  do 
not  work  because  they  feel  that  it  is  their  duty  to  work,  simply, 
without  regard  to  consequences.  They  are  willing  to  work  under  the 
stimulus  of  a  vain  ambition.  They  will  work  if  they  may  be  praised. 
They  will  work  if  they  are  to  receive  an  equivalent  for  their  working 
in  some  appreciable  form.  The  equivalent,  oftentimes,  for  exertion, 
is  praise  or  popularity.  And  thus  men  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
God  working  for  their  own  selves  while  they  take  to  themselves  the 
credit  of  working  for  God. 

Disinterested  labor — ^how  little  there  is  of  it !  How  few  there  are 
outside  of  the  household  that  work  for  others  to  gratify  an  intrinsic 
desire  to  do  good  !  How  few  there  are  that  work  as  Christ  does,  who 
works  because  he  loves,  and  because  he  must  do  the  will  of  his 
Father  which  is  in  heaven,  which  is  his  meat  and  drink  !  How  few 
are  there  working  in  life  who  put  forth  exertion,  not  for  the  sake  of 
what  is  right,  but  because  their  hearts  are  in  sympathy  with  God's 
heart  and  because  they  desire  to  work  !  How  few  there  are  that 
work  in  order  to  give  expression  to  their  moral  nature  ! 

Do,  then,  whatever  there  is  to  be  done  without  questioning  and 
without  calculation.  Make  progress  in  things  moral  If  need  be, 
utter  stammering  words.  Would  you  console  the  troubled  if  you 
only  had  a  ready  tongue  ?  Take  the  tongue  that  you  have.  Ring 
the  bell  that  hangs  in  your  steeple,  if  you  can  do  no  better.  Do 
as  well  as  you  can.  That  is  all  that  God  i*equires  of  you.  Would 
you  pray  with  the  needy  and  tempted  if  you  had  eminent  gifts 
of  prayer  ?  Use  the  gifts  that  you  have.  Do  not  measure  your- 
self according  to  the  pattern  of  somebody  else.  Do  not  say  to 
yourself.  "  If  I  had  his  skill,"  or,  "  If  I  had  his  experience."  Take 
your  own  skill  and  your  own  experience,  and  make  the  most  of 
them.  Do  you  stand  over  against  trouble  and  suffering,  and  marvel 
that  men  whom  God  hath  blessed  with  such  means  do  so  little  ? 
Do  you  say  to  yourself,  "  If  I  had  money,  I  know  what  I  would  do 
with  it "?  No,  you  do  not.  God  does  ;  and  so  he  does  not  trust  you 
with  it.     "  If  I  had  something  different  from  what  I  have,  I  would 


THB  POWER  OF  HUMBLE  FIDELITY.  333 

worlc,"  says  many  a  man.  No ;  if  you  would  work  in  other  circum- 
stances, you  -vvould  work  just  where  you  are.  A  man  that  will  not 
work  just  where  he  is,  with  just  what  he  has,  and  for  the  love  of 
God,  and  for  the  love  of  man,  will  not  work  anywhere,  in  such  a  way 
as  to  make  his  work  valuable.  It  will  be  adulterated  work.  What 
if  you  have  not  money  ?  If  you  have  a  heart  to  work,  it  is  better 
than  if  you  had  great  riches.  Men  need  sympathy  and  brotherhood 
as  much  as  they  need  the  loaf.  It  may  be  that  you  cannot  teach  as 
you  would  ;  nevertheless,  you  can  teach.  And  if  you  are  only  wil- 
ling to  do  the  least  things  now,  by  and  by  you  may  do  better.  But 
whether  you  do  better  or  not,  it  is  your  business  to  do  that  which  it 
is  in  your  power  to  do.  You  are  to  do  what  you  can,  whether  it  be 
more  or  less  ;  whether  it  be  great  or  little ;  whether  it  be  conspicuous 
or  inconspicuous  and  humble.  And  if  you  find  that  you  are  hesi- 
tant, reluctant,  and  are  acting  accordingly,  be  sure  that  you  do  not 
belong  to  the  widow's  school.  Did  she  say  to  herself,  as  she  handled 
her  fractions  of  a  penny,  "  What  is  the  use  of  my  throwing  these 
in  ?  They  will  scarcely  be  taken  out.  They  are  all  that  I  have,  with 
which  to  buy  my  day's  food.  Thei-e  it  will  do  very  little  good  ;  here 
it  will  do  a  great  deal  of  good.  It  is  my  duty  to  take  care  of  my- 
self. I  am  bound  to  feed  my  body  "  ?  Nothing  of  the  sort.  But 
ah  !  what  a  heart  she  had  !  She  would  rather  serve  her  heart,  and 
go  that  day  without  necessary  food,  that  she  might  feel,  "  I  too 
stand  among  my  people,  and  I  help  to  support  this  temple,  and  I 
praise  my  God  by  my  benefaction."  The  privilege  of  throwing  into 
the  treasury  the  tenth  part  of  a  penny  made  music  in  her  heart,  if  it 
made  music  nowhere  else.  And  God  heard  it,  and  accepted  it,  and 
blessed  it  to  all  eternity. 

Do  not  then  go  about  saying,  "  Where  shall  I  bestow  my  talents  ? 
Where  shall  I  settle  myself?  "  I  have  seen  teachers  and  preachers 
whose  distress  of  mind  seemed  to  be  that  they  were  endowed  with  a 
royalty  of  talents  which  made  it  very  difficult  for  them  to  know 
where  to  go.  They  were  like  big  men-of-war  that  do  not  dare  to  go 
into  shallow  channels  for  fear  of  running  aground.  I  have  knowu 
men  who  spent  the  best  part  of  their  lives  in  looking  about  to  see 
where  they  might  bestow  themselves  with  their  magnificent  talents. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  I  have  known  little  uncomely  men  like 
Paul — who  was  probably  one  of  the  most  insignificant  blear-eyed 
looking  men  of  his  generation — who  never  thought  about  where  they 
should  bestow  themselves,  who  took  no  great  account  of  their  talents, 
but  who  had  warm  hearts  which  interpreted  their  worth,  and  who 
were  morning  and  evening  by  the  road-side,  or  in  the  car,  or  in  the 
*cottage  of  the  poor,  or  ii?  the  resplendent  mansion  of  the  rich  man, 


834:  TEE  POWEB  OF  HUMBLE  FIDELITY. 

and  -wlio, wherever  they  were,  were  opening  the  fountain  of  true  and 
divine  benevolence.  They  were  continually  doing  th&  thing  next  to 
them  that  needed  to  be  done,  and  they  had  no  time  for  anxiety  as  to 
where  they  should  bestow  themselves.  They  were  benefactors,  and 
they  devoted  themselves  to  doing  good. 

Do  not  be  too  ambitious.  Be  more  zealous  than  ambitious.  Do 
not  calculate  ;  though  you  should  have  discrimination  and  good  sense. 
(Still,  that  is  a  thing  which  God  gives  to  men ;  and  if  he  does  not 
give  it  to  them  they  never  can  get  it.)  Work,  not  so  much  by  the 
engineer's  rule,  or  the  arithmetician's  calculations,  as  by  the  im- 
pulses of  a  heart  that  would  praise  God  everywhere.  And  so  your 
Kfe  shall  not  be  void  or  empty.  You  cannot  make  a  heart  empty 
and  profitless  that  is  full  of  throbbing  sympathy.  There  are  men 
who  scatter  good  wherever  they  are.  Some  of  it  is  recognized,  and 
some  of  it  is  not ;  but  they  go  on  scattering  it  just  as  much  as 
though  it  were  all  recognized. 

I  do  not  think  that  flowers  know  how  much  the  dews  bless  them ; 
but  the  dews  do  bless  them  immeasurably.  In  heaven  you  will  find 
out  how  much  good  you  have  accomplished — and  I  pity  the  man 
■who  can  estimate  in  this  life  all  the  good  he  has  done.  He  must  be 
living  a  starveling,  poverty-stricken  life.  But  blessed  is  the  man  the 
result  of  whose  good  deeds  will  be  disclosed  to  him  in  the  other  life 
in  greater  measure  than  in  this  I 

If  men  are  working  by  unconscious  ways ;  if  the  shadow  of  one 
passing-by  is  sufficient  to  cure  the  sick ;  if  the  touch  of  garments 
carries  healing  in  it;  if  the  effects  produced  by  a  heart  overflowing 
with  love  are  such  as  I  have  described,  how  many  men  will  by  and 
by  rise  up  into  stature  !  And  how  many,  alas  !  will  sink  down  out 
of  stature ! 

God's  work,  which  is  growing,  building  up,  in  the  world,  is  not 
done  mostly  by  those  who  are  most  in  men's  mouths  or  eyes.  With- 
out undervaluing  the  more  obvious  institutions — schools  and  church- 
es ;  without  undervaluing  books  and  ordinances ;  while  I  esteem 
as  highly  as  any  man  can  these  outward  instrumentalities,  I  more 
highly  esteem  those  silent,  invisible  influences  which  are  at  work 
among  men  for  their  amelioration  and  elevation.  I  do  not  think  I  do 
a  thousandth  part  as  much  good  here  by  my  ministrations  as  is  done 
by  the  obscure  fidelities  of  the  poor  people  who  go  to  their  houses 
and  live  the  religion  which  I  only  preach.  Ah  !  it  is  the  unobtrusive 
piety,  it  is  the  quiet  painstaking,  it  is  the  suffering  for  another  amidst 
poverty  and  amidst  discouragements,  it  is  the  unimpeached  fidelity 
which,  though  spit  upon,  and  beaten,  and  neglected,  and  abused,  still 
carries  love  in  the  midst  of  vice  and  squalor — it  is  these  things  that 


THB  FOWJiJE  OF  HUMBLE  FIDELITY.  335 

are  Christ  made  manifest  in  this  world — the  Christ  of  poor  men  ; 
the  Christ  of  suffering  and  bleeding  hearts ;  the  Christ  of  self-deniaL 
For  the  cross  is  not  abolished.  Thousands  yet  go  bearing  the 
cross,  following  Christ.  And  while  I  would  not  undervalue  the  out- 
ward presentations  of  truth  ;  while  I  would  not  diminish  the  churches 
that  exist,  I  would  exalt  these  more  silent  and  obscure  virtues,  and 
say,  "  After  all,  there  is  the  marrow ;  there  is  the  power  of  God  in  this 
world."  It  resides  in  the  almost  hidden  examples  of  true  Christian 
living.  There  is  many  a  tear  that  plashes  on  the  floor  which  out- 
does in  power  the  rounded  sentences  of  the  most  resplendent  orator. 
There  is  many  a  simple  act  of  standing  still  and  waiting  on  God 
which  is  more  potent  than  the  stateliest  thing  which  is  done  by  the 
hand  of  art.  The  history  of  this  world  is  not  to  be  written  on  mar- 
ble, or  wood,  or  stone,  or  gold.  The  history  of  this  world  is  going 
on  in  the  heart  in  obscurity.  The  meekness,  the  patience,  the  gen- 
tleness, the  forbearance,  the  sweet  forgiveness,  the  spirit  which  says, 
*'  Try  again !"  the  undisclosed  endeavor — these  things,  continued 
for 'days  and  weeks  and  months  and  years,  through  good  report 
and  through  bad  report;  the  following  after  Christ  in  one's  self 
in  one's  fellows,  in  the  poor  and  unfortunate,  in  those  that  have  no 
parents,  in  those  that  are  tempted  by  poverty  where  the  very  crust  is 
divided — these  are  the  things  by  which  great  histories  are  being  writ- 
ten. Ah  !  God  dips  the  pen  of  the  recording  angel  very  near  to  the 
mud-puddle.  God  selects  the  white  linen  of  many  a  saint  very  near 
to  rags.  God  selects  the  gold  out  of  which  he  will  build  the  pave- 
ment of  the  hereafter  very  near  to  the  filth  and  the  dirt  of  this  world. 
Our  open  life  will  take  care  of  itself.  In  our  obscure,  secret  life 
— there  is  where  we  need  more  faith ;  more  fidelity ;  more  of  the  true 
Christian  fruit. 

There  is  in  this  view  a  very  searching  criticism  for  every  one  to 
apply  to  himself,  in  respect  to  the  increase  of  his  usefulness  for 
Christ. 

Judging  this  woman  by  moral  proportions,  she  did  what  she  could. 
It  is  said,  in  another  place,  of  her  that  broke  the  alabaster  box  oa 
Christ's  head,  "  She  hath  wrought  a  good  work."  Here  it  is  said, 
*'  She  hath  given  all  her  living."  And  this  woman  who  gave  a 
fraction  of  a  penny,  gave  more,  according  to  the  doctrine  of  moral 
proportions,  than  they  who  gave  gold  and  precious  stones. 

Now,  how  many  who,  as  they  begin  life,  in  their  youth,  are  gen- 
erous, and  give  according  to  theii-  means,  as  they  grow  stronger,  and 
acquire  more  property,  and  become  more  learned,  become  less  gear 
erous  !  How  many,  as  they  become  more  skillful  and  refined,  grow- 
more  fastidious  !    How  many,  as  they  become  more  capable  of  throw* 


836  TEE  POWEB  OF  HUMBLE  FIDELITY. 

ing  light  on  persons,  shield  that  light  for  their  OAvn  enlightenment 
in  their  own  dwelling  !  How  many,  as  they  become  more  endowed, 
so  that  they  might  become  benefactors  to  those  below  them,  gather 
about  themselves  their  sweet  companions,  and  go  in  chanting  robes 
to  sing  charming  music  for  themselves  !  When  they  were  poor  they 
were  generous,  but  as  their  means  increased,  no  proportion  was  kept 
between  what  they  received  and  what  they  gave.  If  at  the  begin- 
ning they  would  give  one-tenth  of  their  regular  income,  at  the  end 
they  would  not  give  a  thousandth  part  of  that  income.  Men,  as  they 
grow  strong,  and  rich,  and  learned,  and  refined,  seldom  keep  up  that 
proportion  between  what  they  do  and  what  they  can  do  with  which 
they  started  in  life.  It  is  a  sad  and  sorrowful  fact  which  statistics 
will  bear  out,  that  when  we  begin  Christian  life,  and  are  learners, 
we  come  more  nearly  to  working  in  proportion  to  what  we  have  than 
when  we  have  completed  the  circle  of  our  education,  and  come  to 
the  other  side.  Few  men  at  the  last  part  of  life  work  at  all  nearly 
up  to  the  measure  of  Avhat  they  have.  And  so  it  is  that  we  see  the 
spectacle  of  men  who  step  aside  and  let  others  come  in,  just  at  %hat 
period  when  they  themselves  are  best  fitted  to  lift,  as  Samson  lifted ; 
when  they  are  best  fitted  to  contend,  as  the  noblest  warriors  con- 
tend, against  the  evils  of  life ;  when  they  are  the  best  fitted  to  rear 
the  most  magnificent  moral  structures ;  when  they  are  the  most 
fully  equipped  with  experiences,  and  the  most  completely  endowed 
with  materials  for  working. 

But,  not  to  draw  this  thought  unduly  out,  I  remark  that  there  is 
great  cheer  in  the  incident  which  is  the  theme  of  our  discourse  this 
morning,  to  those  who  are  under  circumstances  of  great  discourage- 
ment and  despondency.  I  love  to  bring  up  such  examples  from  the 
history  of  our  Master,  to  encourage  those  who  need  encouragement. 
For  we  grow  weary  in  well-doing,  forgetting  that  "  in  due  season  we 
shall  reap  if  we  faint  noV  There  are  those  who  are  surrounded  by 
household  cares,  who  are  subject  to  more  or  less  discouragement,  who 
do  not  know  from  day  to  day  which  way  they  shall  turn.  To  all  such 
I  would  say.  Be  faithful  still,  whether  in  sickness  or  in  trouble  ;  bear 
the  yoke ;  endure  hardness  in  your  places  as  good  soldiers.  What  if 
you  are  not  known  ?  What  if  you  have  not  friends  ?  What  if  you 
are  obscure  ?  What  if  you  have  no  altar  at  which  to  worship  ?  Then 
■worship  where  you  are.  Stand  where  God  has  put  you.  Bear,  en- 
dure, fulfill.  No  matter  if  there  is  no  window  through  which  men 
can  look  into  your  life.  There  is  One  that  sees  you,  God's  eye  is 
on  you  at  morning,  and  at  evening,  and  through  the  whole  day.  The 
Saviour  is  present  with  every  father  and  every  mother  who  are  seek- 


THB  FOWIJB  OF  HUMBLE  FIDELITY.  337 

ing  to  do  their  appropriate  work  faithfully  in  the  household.     So  be 
of  good  cheer. 

Do  not  care  what  the  world  says,  if  Christ  praises  you.  In  all  kinds 
of  business  there  are  men  who  are  seeking  to  do  their  Master's  will> 
finding  themselves  bruised,  their  best  moral  efforts  overthrown,  and 
themselves,  oftentimes,  unsuccessful.  They  counsel  with  themselves 
as  to  whether  they  shall  still  bear  witness  to  integrity  ;  whether  they 
shall  not  go  with  the  rushing  throng  and  accept  custom.  But  the 
Saviour  says  to  every  man  who  is  seeking  to  have  the  spirit  of  Christ 
in  him,  "  Carry  that  Spirit  into  your  affairs.  I  behold.  Endure  to 
the  end.  I  will  make  you  a  pillar  in  the  temple  of  my  God,  if  you 
hold  out  to  the  last." 

Do  not  be  discouraged,  then.  Do  not  yield  the  conflict.  Stand 
steadfastly  in  your  place.  Still  ask  for  the  brightest  inspirations. 
Still  attempt  to  pour  from  your  soul  into  the  affairs  and  channels 
where  you  are,  God's  truest  thoughts  and  feelings ;  and  the  time  will 
come  when  God  will  reward  you. 

And  to  those  who  are  in  schools,  and  are  discouraged  with  the  in- 
aptitude and  stupidity  and  ignorance  of  scholars ;  to  those  teachers 
who  labor  with  small  compensation  ;  to  the  great  army  of  noble  souls 
who  have  gone  away  from  the  comforts  of  home,  and  set  themselves 
down  in  the  twilight  of  far  distant  States  to  carry  knowledge  to 
those  to  whom  it  was  until  recently  a  crime ;  to  those  who  find  them- 
selves shut  out  from  respectability,  and  from  sympathy,  and  who  are 
obliged  to  herd  with  the  poor,  and  make  their  bed  with  them — to  all 
such  I  would  say.  Be  of  good  cheer.  The  God  of  the  widow  and  of 
the  orphan,  the  God  of  the  poor  and  the  needy,  the  God  of  final  and 
quick-coming  judgment — he  beholds  you,  and  is  interested  in  you,  and 
will  multiply  to  you  ten  thousand  fold  for  every  sorrow  or  joy  in 
ever-measure.  "  In  patience  possess  ye  your  souls  ";  do  in  obscurity 
the  thing  that  is  true,  and  right,  and  noble ;  and  wait  for  God. 

And  to  all  those  who  are  preaching  in  discouragement  in  the  midst 
of  superstitions,  and  in  rude  neighborhoods  are  seeking  to  build  foun- 
dations whose  superstructure  they  never  expect  to  see — to  them  I 
would  say.  Dear  friends  of  Christ,  be  ye  not  discouraged.  "  In  due 
season  ye  shall  reap  if  ye  faint  not."  The  time  is  short.  The  work  is 
great.  God  needs  just  such  men  as  ai-e  willing  to  work  without  wit- 
ness, and  without  earthly  reward.  Speak  with  a  homely  tongue,  if 
God  has  given  you  no  better.  Speak  from  house  to  house,  if  it  be 
not  yours  to  stand  on  the  platform  and  command  an  audience.  If 
you  cannot  do  the  things  which  you  do  as  you  fain  would  do  them, 
and  as  others  expect  you  to  do  them,  do  them  as  best  you  can ;  and 
remember  that  it  is  the  heart  that  measures  the  deed,  and  gives  it  its 


338  THE  FOWEB  OF  HUMBLE  FIDELITY. 

value.  And  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when  the  God  of  the  poor  wid- 
ow will  call  you  from  your  labor,  and  own  you  in  the  presence  of  his 
angels.  Then  you  will  be  measured,  not  by  the  eloquent  tongue, 
not  by  the  ready  hand,  not  by  the  skillful  finger,  but  by  the  love, 
the  fidelity,  and  earnest  sincerity,  which  there  was  in  your  soul, 
which  inspired  your  labor,  and  which  kept  you  faithful  to  the  very 
end. 


THE  FOWEB  OF  HUMBLE  FIDELITY,  339 

PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

We  draw  near  to  thee,  O  Lord  our  God !  instructed  in  thy  love  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Saviour.  We  rejoice  that  thou  dost  not  meet  us  with  force, 
nor  with  penalty ;  that  thou  dost  not  measure  with  justice  and  with  equity; 
for  none  of  us  could  stand  in  thy  presence.  There  is  no  part  of  our  nature 
with  which  we  have  not  sinned.  There  is  no  part  of  the  law  that  hath 
touched  us  that  we  have  not  broken.  We  have  sinned  for  years,  hardening 
our  hearts  until  they  are  perverse  and  turned  out  of  the  way.  And  sve 
rejoice  that  thou  hast  recreated  in  us  newness  of  life,  through  Jesus  our  Lord, 
and  taught  us  to  come  to  thee  reverently,  in  the  spirit  of  filial  fear,  but  more 
in  the  spirit  of  confidence  and  love.  We  rejoice  that  thou  hast  unveiled  thy- 
self to  us  as  nature  does  not.  We  behold  thee  and  thy  laws  full  of  good  fruit 
to  the  obedient,  and  full  of  penalty  to  the  transgressor.  And  where  in  all 
the  realm  without  dost  thou  declare  thyself  to  be  with  the  penitent,  and  with 
the  lowly,  and  with  the  weak,  and  with  the  needy,  and  with  [the  guilty? 
Verily  thou  hast  spoken  to  us  by  the  voice  of  thy  Son — by  our  Saviour.  Thou 
hast  taught  us  that  thou  art  dealing  with  us  even  as  parents  deal  with  their 
children ;  that  thou  dost  not  spare  thyself,  didst  not  spare  thyself,  wilt  not 
spare  thyself ;  that  thou  dost  give  time,  and  thought,  and  care,  and  suffering 
itself,  that  thou  mayest  bring  forth  unto  purity  those  that  are  gone  astray. 
Thou  art  seeking  the  dark,  to  give  them  light.  Thou  art  calling,  with  all  the 
voice  of  thy  providence,  to  those  who  are  pursuing  evil  ways,  to  turn  again 
upon  their  path,  and  to  come  unto  thee.  Thou  art  helping  ttiem.  Words  of 
warning  thou  dost  throw  down  before  them,  and  words  of  encouragement 
behind  them,  that  they  may  be  drawn  from  the  evil  that  threatens  them, 
and  Drought  back  to  the  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  their  souls. 

Now,  O  Lord  our  God  !  we  desire  to  come  to  thee  in  the  blessed  name  of 
Christ  Jesus.  We  desire  to  come  with  all  the  encouragement,  with  all  the 
hope,  and  with  all  the  assurance  which  is  in  him.  May  his  promises  cover 
us.  May  all  the  sweet  woi'ds  of  cheer  which  have  sustained  so  many  thou- 
sands in  the  deepest  of  the  battle  of  life,  sustain  us.  May  those  truths  which 
have  been  the  armor  of  God  to  so  many,  clothe  us.  Grant  that  we,  as  good 
soldiers  ia  this  great  warfare,  clothed  with  the  whole  panoply  of  God,  may 
stand,  and  having  done  all,  still  stand.  Grant,  we  beseech  of  thee,  that  we 
may,  this  day,  draw  very  near  to  thee  in  hope,  very  near  in  love,  very  near 
in  the  spirit  of  appropriating  faith.  May  we  be  able  to  take  something  from 
thy  truth  home  to  ourselves.  May  we  be  able  this  day  to  feel  that  God  hath 
entered  into  the  secret  experience  of  our  souls ;  that  he  hath  shined  blessin"-s 
upon  us  ;  that  the  altar  hath  given  something  to  the  soul. 

And  grant,  we  pray  thee,  thy  blessing  especially  to  rest  upon  all  those  that 
have  gathered  this  morning,  desiring  to  make  their  petitions  known  unto 
thee.  May  their  hearts  be  vocal  unto  thee.  Wilt  thou  listen  to  every  one, 
and  accept  the  confession,  or  thanksgiving,  or  aspiration  of  every  one. 

Grant  that  thy  blessing  may  be  meted  out  to  every  household,  as  their 
circumstances  may  require.  Be  with  those  who  are  rescued  from  sickness, 
and  who  have  come  hither  to-day  rejoicing  once  more  in  the  privileges  of 
the  sanctuary.  Be  near  to  those  who  have  occasion  for  thanksgiving  in  that 
their  prayers  are  answered  because  their  dearly  beloved  have  been  spared 
to  them.  Remember  those,  we  beseech  of  thee,  who  desire  to  be  here  to-day, 
but  who  are  kept  away  by  sickness  in  their  households.  Wilt  thou  command 
that  the  angel  of  health  may  spread  his  wings  over  those  liouseholds  and 
heal  them.  Visit  those  households  where  there  is  sorrow  and  great  distress, 
to-day.  And  be  near  to  any  that  are  going  down  the  valley,  and  are  not  far 
from  the  gate.  And  though  it  seem  to  them  dark,  may  they  feel  that  beyond 
all  there  is  light;  that  there  is  a  land  without  a  sun  and  without  night. 


340  TEE  FOWEB  OF  HUMBLE  FIDELITY. 

And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  all  those  upon  whom  thou  art 
laying  burdens  may  have  strength  to-day;  that  they  may  have  access  to 
thee.    Wilt  thou  be  pleased  to  put  thine  arm  beneath  them,  and  lift  them  up. 

Be  near  to  any  who  are  in  perplexity,  and  who  know  not  what  way  to  go, 
and  are  lost  as  they  that  are  in  the  wilderness.  Be  the' r  guide  out  of  all  their 
perplexity.  And  may  they  stand  in  the  strength  of  the  Lord.  And  when 
they  shall  again  have  established  their  goings,  may  they  stand  with  grati- 
tude and  with  life-long  service  in  thy  sanctuary. 

We  pray  that  thy  blessing  may  rest  upon  all  parents,  and  on  all  those 
who  are  in  trouble  for  their  children.  And  hear,  O  Lord,  the  prayers  of 
children  who  desire  the  blessing  of  Almighty  God  to  rest  upon  their  parents. 
Be  with  those  who  are  separated  from  friends;  who  are  upon  the  sea;  who 
are  doing  business  upon  the  great  waters.  Be  with  those  who  are  far  away 
in  distant  lands.  Lord,  how  near  they  are  to  thee,  though  they  are  so  far  in 
seeming  from  us  !  Grant  that  our  thoughts,  as  they  go  out  to-day,  may  bear 
with  them  thy  blessing  every  whither.  We  pray  for  those  who  are  not  fa- 
vored as  we  are  with  the  light  of  the  Gospel ;  for  those  who  sit  in  strange 
places  to-day,  and  are  heartsick  in  remembering  past  privileges  that  have 
long  since  ceased  to  them. 

Be  with  those  who  have  gone  forth  to  preach  the  Gospel  of  Christ  among 
the  humble  and  the  poor.  Be  with  those  whom  no  man  cares  for.  Be  with 
those  who  are  suffering  the  privations  of  a  life  upon  our  frontier.  May  all 
those  who  seek  to  benefit  others,  find  themselves  strengthened  of  God.  O  1 
that  the  Gospel  which  is  preached  to-Cay  might  be  one  of  wisdom  and  power 
from  on  high.  And  everywhere  may  thy  people  be  comforted  and  strength- 
ened. And  grant  that  thy  kingdom  may  come  everywhere  throughout  the 
world. 

We  pray  for  the  advance  of  civilization;  for  the  purification  of  morals; 
for  the  melioration  of  manners;  for  concord  among  the  people.  We  pray 
that  the  oppression  of  the  weak  may  cease,  and  that  the  hearts  of  the  strong 
may  grow  more  Christ-like.  We  pray  for  the  diffusion  of  that  knowledge 
which  shall  drive  superstition  out  of  every  religion.  And  we  pray  for  those 
among  whom  there  is  no  religion.  We  pray  for  the  elevation  of  thy 
Churches.  And  grant,  O  Lord !  that  at  last  the  time  may  come  wiien  all  the 
fierceness  of  the  beast  shall  depart  from  out  of  man,  and  wars  shall  cease, 
and  cruelties  shall  cease,  and  all  the  world  shall  be  governed  by  justice,  by 
love,  by  truth,  and  by  fidelity. 

And  to  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Spirit  shall  be  praises  for  evermore. 
Amen. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Father,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest 
upon  the  words  of  exhortation.  May  all  of  us  be  aroused  to  think  more 
nearly  as  thou  thinkest,  and  to  feel  more  nearly  as  thou  dost  feel.  Bring  us 
up  out  of  the  dark,  out  of  the  blearing  light  of  this  world — its  bad  examples, 
its  selfishness,  and  its  ambitions.  Inspire  us  with  something  of  thine  own 
life.  Teach  us  to  bo  humble  as  thou  wert,  and  meek  as  thou  wert.  May  we 
learn  of  thee.  And  in  thy  meekness  and  humility  may  we  have  something 
of  thy  rest,  and  of  thy  peace.  O!  that  we  might  look  forward  more  to  the 
coming  day,  and  live  as  seeing  that  which  is  invisible.  Bless  all  that  labor, 
and  all  that  suffer,  in  their  various  circumstances.  Purify  their  motives. 
Inspire  their  hearts.  Lift  us  all  higlier  toward  the  heavenly  land.  And  bring 
us,  at  the  last,  to  behold  it  with  unveiled  face,  and  to  see  thee  as  thou  art. 
And  to  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Spirit  shall  be  the  praise,  f  orevermore. 
Amen, 


XXI. 

A  Plea  fob  Good  Works. 


INVOCATION. 

Our  Father,  wilt  thou  grant  unto  us,  this  morning,  that  divine  influence 
from  which  shall  spring  life  and  fruit.  Grant  unto  us  such  yearnings,  such 
aspirations,  such  strong  desire  of  love,  that  we  may  take  hold  upon  thee,  and 
be  lifted  up  into  thine  immediate  presence,  and  feel  the  sanctifying  influence 
of  thy  Spirit.  Send  the  light  of  thy  truth  into  our  hearts;  enlarge  the 
bounds  of  our  thought .  dismiss  from  our  minds  the  cares  and  troubles  of 
this  lower  life,  and  bring  us  into  the  peace  and  serenity  of  that  sphere  where 
thou  dwellest.  Spread  abroad  thy  wings  above  us,  that  under  their  cover 
we  may  be  at  rest  and  secure.  And  grant  that  the  blessed  influences  of 
this  day,  as  they  profit  us,  may  honor  thee,  and  have  favor  in  thy  sight.  We 
ask  it  for  Christ's  sake.    Arnen. 

n 


A  PLEA  FOR  GOOD  WORIS. 


"  This  is  a  faithful  saying,  and  these  things  I  will  that  thou  affirm  con- 
stantly, that  they  which  have  believed  in  God  might  be  careful  to  maintain 
good  works.    These  things  are  good  and  profitable  unto  men." 

"^nd  let  ours  also  learn  to  maintain  good  works  for  necessary  uses,  that 
they  be  not  unfruitful," — Titus  iii.,  8, 14. 


In  the  epistle  of  Paul  to  Titus,  and  in  his  two  epistles  to  Tim- 
othy, we  have  not  only  the  general  expression  of  his  teaching,  but 
an  indication  of  his  idea  of  the  mode  in  which  a  minister  should 
administer  the  truth — of  the  subjects  that  he  should  discuss,  and  of 
the  methods  by  which  he  should  present  the  truth  in  connection 
with  those  subjects.  There  is  therefore  in  these  epistles  a  practical 
element  which  we  scarcely  shall  find  in  any  other  of  the  apostle's 
writings.  For  when  he  teaches  teachers  how  to  teach,  he  gives  a 
certain  insight  which  he  would  not  if  he  were  teaching  the  congre- 
gation itself 

We  find  that  when  the  apostle  is  writing  to  teachers,  he  puts 
great  emphasis  on  the  subject  of  Good  Works.  We  find  more  said 
about  good  works  in  the  New  Testament  than  we  hear  said  about 
them  in  the  pulpit.  I  see,  on  every  side,  men  afraid  to  teach  moral- 
ity, as  being  too  superficial  and  too  shallow.  And  others  are  afraid 
to  preach  too  much  good  works  because  it  will  lead  men  away  from 
the  doctrine  of  "justification  by  faith."  And  others  are  afraid  to 
teach  good  works  because  it  will  lead  men  to  build  their  foundations 
not  solid  enough  nor  deep  enough.  But  I  hear  the  apostle  saying  to 
tliose  who  are  ordained  as  teachers  and  overseers  : 

♦•  I  will  that  thou  affirm  constantly,  that  they  which  have  believed  in  God 
might  be  careful  to  maintain  good  works.  These  things  are  good  and  profit- 
able to  men.  Let  ours  [that  is,  our  disciples]  learn  to  maintain  good  works 
for  necessary  uses,  that  they  be  not  unfruitful." 

This  is  not  an  accidental  passage.  If  you  turn  to  the  first  epistle 
to  Timothy,  aside  from  scattered  passages  all  through  the  epistle, 
you  find  one  in  the  fifth  chapter,  where  the  apostle,  speaking  of  what 
a  deaconness'  qualifications  ought  to  be,  says, 

"  Well  reported  of  for  good  works ;  if  she  have  brought  up  children,  if 
she  have  lodged  strangers,  if  she  have  washed  the  saints'  feet,  if  she  have 
relieved  the  afflicted,  if  she  have  diligently  followed  every  good  work." 

SuiTDAT  Morning,  Jan.  29, 187L  Lbsson  ;  Rom.  Xn.  Htmns  (Plymoulb  CollectioD} : 
No3. 104, 173.  633. 


342  A  PLEA  FOB  GOOD  WOEKS. 

That  shows  the  kind  of  good  Avorks  that  is  meant.  Working 
kindness  and  beneficence  and  equity  in  every  direction — that  is  the 
good  works  which  the  apostle  sought  to  inculcate. 

Then  we  find  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  this  same  epistle,  the  in- 
iunction, 

"  Charge  them  that  are  rich  in  this  world,  that  they  be  not  high-minded, 
nor  trust  in  uncertain  riches,  but  in  the  living  God,  who  giveth  us  richly  all 
things  to  enjoy ;  that  they  do  good,  that  they  be  rich  in  good  works,  ready 
to  distribute,  willing  to  communicate,  laying  up  in  store  for  themselves  a 
good  foundation  against  the  time  to  come,  that  they  may  lay  hold  on  eternal 
life." 

This  does  not  mean  that  good  works  have  a  meritorious  element 
in  them,  though  it  looks  very  much  as  if  it  did  mean  so. 

So  in  the  2d  of  Timothy  the  apostle  gives  his  idea  comprehen- 
sively of  what  the  benefit  of  the  whole  Scripture  is : 

"  Scripture  is  giveu  by  inspiration  of  God,  and  is  profitable  for  doctrine 
[that  is  to  say,  for  teaching :  it  is  the  basis  of  teaching],  for  reproof,  for  cor- 
rection, for  instruction  in  righteousness :  that  the  man  of  God  may  be 
perfect,  thoroughly  furnished  unto  all  good  works." 

That  is  the  drift  of  the  whole  of  it.  There  is  hardly  a  letter 
of  Paul  that  does  not  put  emphasis  upon  good  works.  Nor  are  we 
left  in  doubt  of  what  he  means  by  the  term.  As  interpreted  by 
the  apostle,  or  as  the  term  is  used  by  the  apostle,  good  works  signi- 
fies, to  give  it  a  modern  phraseology,  right  feelings  breaking  out 
into  right  actions.  Good  works  are  the  outward  expression  of  good 
feelings,  whatever  may  be  that  expression.  They  are  those  means 
by  which  a  thought  or  a  feeling  of  truth,  of  equity,  or  of  kindness, 
in  us,  takes  on  an  outward  form,  so  that  it  may  do  something  for  us. 
Such  are  the  good  works  that  the  apostle  meant.  And  of  course 
you  cannot  classify  them.  They  are  endless.  They  are  almost  as 
various  as  the  possibilities  of  combination  in  thought  and  feeling. 
They  are  evidently  discriminated  from  mere  feeling ;  that  is,  they 
are  called  "  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit,"  "  goodliness,"  etc.  When  the 
apostle  designs  to  speak  of  interior  states — love,  joy,  peace,  hope, 
faith — ^he  has  particular  terminology  for  them.  When  he  wishes  to 
speak  of  what  the  results  of  these  states  is  in  outwai'd  life,  then  he 
calls  them  "  good  works."  So  that  these  are  the  right  affections  of 
a  man's  nature  taking  on  an  outwaid  expression.  And  that  ansAvers 
to  the  apostolic  injunction  that  we  are  to  be  rich  in  good  works. 

Hence,  there  is  not  simply  a  continual  specification  throughout 
the  whole  drift  of  the  New  Testament,  of  the  general  productiveness 
of  Christian  life,  but  there  is  a  special  delineation  of  the  duties 
which  flow  from  men's  relations  to  each  other. 

You  shall  find  the  New  Testament  giving  hints  to  magistrates  of 
their  duties,  to  subjects  of  their  duties,  to  masters  of  what  good 


A  PLEA  FOE  GOOD  WOBKS.  343 

"U'orks  are  to  them,  to  slaves  of  wliat  is  expected  of  them,  to  hus- 
bands, to  wives,  to  children,  to  the  rich,  to  the  poor,  to  stran- 
gers, to  persons  in  sorrow,  to  persons  in  joy.  Almost  every  civil  or 
social  situation,  almost  every  condition  in  life,  has  some  point  or 
other  instanced  and  drawn  out  as  a  specimen  of  what  right  action 
is  to  be  in  men  if  they  are  acting  Christianly. 

And  this  always  made  it  seem  very  strange  to  me  that  people 
objected  to  preaching  anything  but  what  they  call  "  the  Gospel." 
For  you  recollect  the  time  when  if  a  man  stepped  out  of  the  old  doc- 
trinal ring,  and  preached  anything  practical,  everybody  shut  him  up 
again,  and  said,  "  Go  back  and  preach  the  Gospel  "  !  And  by  the 
Gospel  they  meant  those  dead  and  alive  intellectual  statements  that 
had  no  particular  relation  to  vital  feelings,  or  motive,  or  conduct — 
especially  conduct  in  public  affairs.  But  when  you  come  to  read  the 
apostle's  letters,  you  will  find  that  they  are  full  of  allusions  to  prac- 
tical life — to  store  life,  to  business  life,  to  magistei'ial  life,  to  the 
life  of  the  king  and  of  the  subject,  to  the  life  of  the  citizen  under 
all  circumstances.  All  the  relations  of  social  life  are  brought  out 
into  view,  and  the  Gospel  is  applied  especially  to  them. 

Now,  I  do  not  think  that  the  preaching  of  the  evangelical 
churches,  even  yet,  attaches  the  same  importance  to  good  works  that 
is  given  to  them  in  the  New  Testament ;  and  there  are,  and  have 
been,  not  a  few  causes  which  have  conspired  to  make  us  barren  in 
that  direction. 

1.  There  is  in  -Scripture  itself  a  caution  on  the  subject  of  good 
works.  JMen  are  dissuaded  from  trusting  in  them.  And  there  is  lan- 
guage which  to  those  who  read  it  incautiously  and  superficially  seems 
to  state  that  good  works  are  of  no  value.  But  then,  they  are  not  the 
good  works  which  we  have  been  speaking  of.  There  was  a  set  of 
legal  roiitine  observances  which  went  by  the  name  oi  works.  Gener- 
ally these  Avere  called  loorks  of  righteousness;  or,  more  frequently, 
works  of  the  laio.  And  the  impression  of  the  old  Jew  was  that  al- 
though it  would  be  better  to  have  right  affections,  nevertheless  one 
fulfilled  every  point  and  particular  of  the  law  by  punctilious  or  out- 
ward performance.  That  he  thought  Avould  be  taken  in  lieu  of  every 
thing  else.  He  made  right  living  to  consist  in  mere  externality  :  not 
in  character,  not  in  disposition,  not  in  motive;  but  simply  in  ritual- 
istic performance.  That  was  a  corrupt,  degenerate  form  of  belief 
which  existed  in  the  time  of  Christ  and  the  apostles ;  and  against 
this  Paul  argued  vehemently.  In  reference  to  this,  he  said  that  works 
were  nothing ;  that  they  had  no  validity  before  God ;  that  there 
was  no  reliance  to  be  placed  upon  them ;  that  one  was  as  safe  with- 
out them  as  with  them  ;  that  if  a  man  wanted  them  he  was  at  liberty 


344  A  PLEA  FOB  GOOD  W0BK8. 

to  take  tliem,  and  if  he  cliose  to  leave  them  off  he  was  at  liberty  to 
do  that ;  that  they  were  not  to  be  trusted  in  ;  that  they  were  with- 
out meritoriousness  ;  that  instrumentally  they  were  good  for  what 
they  did,  and  not  a  whit  more.  But  this  denunciation  of  good 
works  as  a  ground  of  merit  from  the  Jewish  point  of  view,  has  been 
confounded  with  the  exhortation  to  good  works  in  the  sense  in 
which  we  have  explained  them ;  namely,  as  the  outward  expression 
of  benevolent  feelings. 

2.  Another  influence  which  has  dissuaded  ministers  from  preach- 
ing God's  good  works  has  been  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  good  works 
as  having  an  atoning  virtue,  which  originally  sprung  up  under  the 
old  Pharisaic  doctrine,  and  was  the  outgrowth  of  it. 

When  the  reformers  emancipated  the  truth,  they  found  men  per- 
forming useless  and  senseless  things  innumerable, — superstitiously, 
vaguely  believing  that  there  was  merit,  and  a  certain  moral  pur- 
chasing power  in  given  lines  of  conduct.  Thus,  when  men  gave 
gifts  or  performed  charities,  that  was  to  be  set  down  to  them  as  a 
positive  gain — as  so  much  over  against  wrong-doing.  For,  so  igno- 
rant were  men  then  (and  they  still  are  not  much  better  enlightened), 
that  they  supposed  the  transactions  of  a  man's  heart  could  be  likened 
to  the  transactions  of  a  man's  store  ;  and  that  in  matters  of  good  and 
evil  an  account  could  be  kept  of  debit  and  credit,  one  over  against 
the  other.  It  was  taught  that  if  a  man  performed  good  deeds  they 
were  of  various  values.  For  so  many  prayers,  so  many  alms, 
so  many  dollars,  so  much  value  in  gifts,  there  was  set  down  to  their 
credit  so  much.  If  they  performed  penances,  and  endured  mortifica- 
tions, these  inured  to  their  benefit  so  and  so.  K  they  performed  pil- 
grimages and  fastings,  these  wrought  so  much  for  them.  If  they 
repeated  the  Credo,  the  Ave,  or  the  jPater  Noster,  that  availed  them 
so  much. 

Now,  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  say  that  repeating  the  sacred 
Creed,  or  performing  pilgrimages,  and  fastings,  and  penances,  and 
mortifications,  or  bestowing  gifts  and  charities,  is  all  useless.  On 
the  contrary,  if  I  see  a  man  who  by  repeating  his  Credo,  or  his  Ave, 
or  his  Pater  Noster-  is  made  more  devout,  I  say,  "  That  does  him 
good  in  the  proportion  in  which  it  makes  him  more  devout."  If  a 
proud  man  performs  penances  and  mortifications,  and  it  hum- 
bles him,  I  say,  "  It  does  him  good  so  far  as  it  humbles  him." 
These  things  are  instruments  ;  and  if  they  work  out  any  good  in  a 
man,  they  are  valuable  for  just  that,  but  for  nothing  else.  They 
are  schoolmasters ;  and  they  are  good  if  they  teach  man,  who  is  their 
pupil.  But  in  the  time  of  the  reformers  it  was  thought  that  there 
was  intrinsic  merit  in  them,  independent   of  what  they  did  for  a 


A  PLEA  FOB  GOOD  W0BK8.  345 

man ;  and  the  church  was  found  swarming  with  false  notions  of  good 
works — with  ecclesiastical  impositions  tliat  went  by  the  name  of 
good  works.  And  these  reformers  lifted  up  their  voices,  and  said, 
"  It  is  the  heart  that  avails.  It  is  the  disposition  before  God  that  is 
taken  into  account.  If  a  man  is  just,  and  pure,  and  true,  and  peni- 
tent, and  humble,  and  loving,  God  accepts  him  on  account  of  the 
moral  nature  which  he  finds  or  plants  in  him,  and  not  on  account  of 
the  external  works  which  he  perfoi'ms."  And  so  they  denounced 
works,  and  said,  "Ye  are  justified  by  faith" — that  is,  "Ye  are  to  be 
saved  by  faith."  There  was  a  Catholic  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith  ;  but  it  was  not  one  which  would  meet  our  modern  needs.  As 
I  understand  it,  a  man  is  justified  before  God  on  this  ground, — that 
God's  heart  and  disposition  is  such  that  they  have  in  them  healing 
power,  so  that  when  man's  nature  is  brought  into  willing,  vol- 
untary, and  continuous  sympathy  with  them,  they  cleanse  him.  The 
divine  nature  cleanses  ours.  We  are  justified  by  our  faith — that 
faith  which  brings  us  into  commerce  with  God.  We  are  purified, 
and  cleansed,  and  ennobled  by  contact  with  divinity.  That  is  justi- 
fication by  faith.  And  while  the  Roman  priest  was  saying,  "  Ye  are 
justified  by  your  meritorious  works  :  give,  give,  give  ;  do,  do,  do," 
the  reformer  came,  saying,  "  Ye  are  justified  by  no  outward  works  : 
ye  are  justified  by  the  merit  and  inward  virtue  of  the  heart  of  God." 
And  the  reformer  was  right.  And  in  that  Catholic  sense  good 
works  were  invalid  and  useless. 

But  such  was  the  horror  of  everything  Roman  Catholic,  that  the 
prejudice  against  good  works  has  come  down  to  our  time,  and  does 
not  stop  to  discriminate  as  to  what  sort  of  works  are  meant.  Every 
thing  called  good  works  is  messed  in  a  common  lump,  and  is  sup- 
posed to  be  uncongenial  to  the  truth,  and  disallowed  by  the  word 
of  God. 

3.  Still  another  cause  of  reluctance  there  was,  which  discouraged 
much  discourse  on  the  subject  of  good  works  ;  namely,  a  very  laudable 
desire,  even  when  not  symmetrical  in  knowledge,  to  counteract  the 
shallow  notions  prevalent  in  society,  as  to  the  sufiiciency  of  morality 
instead  of  true  religion.  For  men  have  held  substantially  that  if 
one  obeys  the  laws  of  his  land,  and  obeys  the  ordinary  maxims  of 
morality  in  his  neighborhood,  although  that  might  not  be  very 
much,  yet  it  was  sufiicient ;  that  God  would  accept  that  in  lieu  of ' 
anything  further — in  lieu  of  any  mysterious  change.  So  the  most 
superficial  notion  of  morality — that  of  paying  debts,  of  paying 
taxes,  of  maintaining  outward  proprieties— was  made  to  be  the 
basis  of  character.  It  was  a  miserable  idea  of  character  which  pre- 
vailed.    It  had  no  inspiration  in  it,  and  never  could  have.     It  kept 


346  A  PLEA  FOB  GOOD  WORKS. 

men  at  a  low  point  of  development.  And  so  it  was  false  and  irnte* 
coming  at  every  point. 

Even  the  philosophers'  idea  of  manhood  left  out  the  whole  ques- 
tion of  the  state  of  the  heart.  It  left  out  the  whole  moral  question 
of  man's  life.  It  would  permit  pride  and  selfishness.  It  would  per- 
mit envy,  and  jealousy,  and  even  malice.  It  would  permit  all  that 
goes  to  degrade  a  man  inwardly,  provided  that  outwardly  he  main- 
tained an  ordinary  degree  of  morality. 

As  against  this,  men  have  preached  that  the  outward  life  was 
not  enough ;  that  there  must  be  something  more  than  morality,  as 
collateral  to  or  independent  of  some  other  thing;  that  character 
must  be  higher  and  nobler  than  any  external  elements  can  make  it ; 
that  there  must  be  some  deeper  views,  and  therefore  views  more  full 
of  inward  and  spiritual  life,  prevailing.  In  communities  where 
morality  had  depressed  the  religious  notions  of  the  community,  and 
false  and  superficial  morality  had  gained  a  footing,  there  sprung  up 
preachers  who  gave  the  most  intense  and  continuous  views  of  the 
need  of  an  inward  life,  and  perhajis  leaned  to  the  other  extreme. 

4.  One  other  influence  I  will  mention,  which  has  acted  very 
strongly ;  namely,  the  tendency  of  men  who  reject  the  so-called  evan- 
gelical scheme  of  doctrine,  and  substitute,  (and  with  not  much 
strength,)  refinement,  sentiment,  taste,  imagination,  beauty,  for  what 
are  called  strong  doctrines.  This  has  set  a  large  part  of  the  pulpit 
very  much  against  the  preaching  of  good  works.  For  it  is  true  that 
a  large  class  of  thoughtful  and  excellent  men — men  excellent  in 
themselves — fell  off  from  what  was  considered  the  hard,  evangelical, 
intellectual  dogmas  ;  and  it  is  true  that  instead  of  raising  up  a  super- 
structure of  strong  intellectual  views,  they  rather  fell  into  a  strain 
of  sentimentalism.  And  I  think  it  is  true  that  their  preaching  became, 
on  the  whole,  feeble.  Though  at  times  it  was  full  of  sentiment  and 
beauty,  and  always  illumined  by  good  taste,  yet,  after  all,  it  lacked 
growth,  and  lost  power.  The  preaching  of  mere  sentiment  will  perliaps 
comfort  those  who  already  are  refined ;  it  will  perhaps  polish  enamel 
that  is  already  smooth  ;  but  such  preaching  never  did,  and  I  think 
never  will,  get  hold  of  the  community  much.  There  is  nothing  in 
refinement  and  taste  and  good  neighborhood  that,  being  alone 
preached,  or  mainly  preached,  gets  any  hold  upon  the  conscience, 
or  gets  any  hold  upon  fear,  or  produces  miich  reformation  among 
wicked  men.  On  the  contrary,  these  things  being  preached  exclu- 
sively, gradually  deliquesce  and  run  out.  There  is  no  power  in  them. 
There  is  no  growth  to  them. 

Thus,  where  the  preaching  of  morality  sprang  up  in  modern 
times,  it  so  happened  that  it  sprang  up  in  the  hands  of  men  who  re- 


A  FLEA  FOE  GOOD  W0EK8.  347 

jected,  or  at  any  rate  neglectied,  the  great  outline  truths  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  and  a  certain  contempt  was  therefore  felt  for  it  when  it  was 
preached  by  such  persons. 

All  these  reasons,  you  see,  are  quite  aside  from  the  truth  itself; 
quite  aside  from  any  philosophic  and  interior  reasons.  They  are  ex- 
ternal reasons  founded  on  actions  and  reactions  which  have  dissuaded 
men  from  preaching  as  much  about  good  works  as  the  Bible  itself 
does. 

There  has  sprung  up,  practically,  indeed,  in  the  evangelical 
churches,  a  high  estimate  of  the  moralities  of  life,  and  of  good 
deeds  in  life.  Doctrinally,  however,  they  have  been  very  little  in- 
sisted upon.  It  has  been  taught,  indeed,  that  if  men  were  well  rooted 
in  doctrine,  or  doctrines,  this  would  tend  to  produce  good  works ; 
and  that  the  most  complete  and  summary  method  of  reaching  good 
works  was  to  imbue  men  with  doctrines  of  grace,  so  that  when  pro- 
foundly moved  they  would  give  forth  those  doctrines  to  the  world. 
And  there  was  some  truth  in  it.  For  morality,  according  to  high 
definition,  is  grace  working  out  into  a  noble  life-form.  And  yet,  in 
many  instances,  and  sometimes  in  whole  denominations,  dry  doctrinal 
discussions  have  gone  on  until,  little  by  little,  the  civilities  of  life, 
the  thousand  courtesies  of  life,  all  the  moralities  of  life,  have  been  un- 
dervalued ;  have  been  put  into  a  separate  classification  of  what  are 
called  "  natural  virtues."  So  that  there  were  gracious  states,  and 
natural  states ;  and  the  natural  states  were  supposed  to  have  no  the- 
ological virtue  in  them. 

I  remember  very  well,  in  my  youth,  when  the  discussion 
waxed  high  between  my  father  and  me,  turning  on  some  such  ques- 
tion as  this :  A  man  is  walking  by  the  side  of  the  river.  He  hears 
some  one  cry  out.  It  is  a  stranger.  The  river  is  full  of  floating  ice. 
The  man,  moved  by  the  impulse  of  generosity,  springs  from  his 
horse,  and  plunges  in.  He  struggles  to  save  the  drowning  man  at 
the  peril  of  his  own  life,  and  will  not  give  him  up,  and  at  last  suc- 
ceeds in  bringing  him  to  shore.  And  not  content  with  simply  saving 
his  life,  he  takes  him  home,  and  administers  to  his  wants,  and  sees 
that  he  is  made  dry  and  warm  and  comfortable.  "  Now,"  said  I, 
"  father,  was  it  a  good  or  a  bad  act  in  that  man  to  risk  his  own  life 
to  rescue  a  fellow  man  from  drowning  ?  "Was  it  acceptable  to  God, 
or  was  it  not?"  "There  was  no  virtue  in  it,"  said  fiither ;  "it  was 
a  mere  nat'ral  impulse — a  mere  nat'ral  impulse."  "  Well,"  said  I, 
"  suppose  such  nat'ral  impulses  were  spread  all  through  a  man,  what 
would  be  the  diiference  between  nat'ral  impulses  and  grace  ?" 

There  prevailed,  arising  from  this  classification,  the  notion  that  a 
man  should  perform  the  lines  of  conduct  which  sprang  from  direct 


£4.8  A  PLBA  FOB  GOOD  WOBES. 

tlieological  doctrine.  Those,  it  was  thought,  would  he  gracious  actions^ 
and  actions  acceptable  before  God.  But  all  those  spontaneous  good 
feelings  that  a  man  observes — all  generosities,  all  kindnesses,  all  oblig- 
ing dispositions,  all  tenderness,  all  sympathy,  all  equity,  all  truth,  all 
magnanimity,  such  as  we  see  irradiating  life,  such  as  smooth  and 
eni-ich  it — these,  it  was  thought,  are  not  bad  (it  never  was  taught 
that  they  were  bad) ;  but  they  have  nothing  of  piety  in  them,  they 
have  not  the  peculiar  quality  which  comes  from  the  regenerating 
process,  it  was  said. 

Now,  I  affirm  that  they  have.  I  affirm  that  they  are  right  in  so 
far  as  they  are  good.  It  is  not  a  question  of  whether  they  amount 
to  this, — that  they  are  a  satisfaction  for  wrong-doing.  They  are  not. 
It  is  a  question  of  whether  a  man  may  not  do  a  great  many  inci- 
dental good  things,  and  yet  the  great  current  of  his  life  be  proud 
and  selfish.  He  may.  It  is  a  question  of  whether  a  man  may  not  be  a 
proud  man,  an  avaricious  man,  a  base  man,  a  very  worldly  man,  and 
yet  have  loop-holes  of  experience  through  which  will  shine  much  that 
is  good  and  noble  and  true.  It  is  a  question  of  whether  a  man  may 
not  have  actions  cropping  out  here  and  there  which  are  not  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  general  drift  of  his  life. 

Here  is  a  man  the  button  of  whose  pocket  is  as  strong  as  decrees ; 
and  nothing  can  tear  it  open.  He  goes  on  from  day  to  day  seeing 
want  on  every  side,  and  steeling  his  heart  against  it,  and  holding 
himself  aloof  from  it.  An^  yet,  there  comes  an  accidental  day  on 
which  that  button  gives  way,  and  the  pocket  flies  open,  and  out 
comes  his  hand,  doing  a  real  good  deed,  which  sav^s  a  man.  Now, 
was  not  that  a  good  deed  ?  What  if  it  was  done  by  a  man  who  was 
stingy  yesterday,  and  that  will  make  up  for  his  generosity  to-day  by 
fleecing  the  first  man  that  he  makes  a  bargain  with  to-morrow,  was 
not  that  a  good  thing  for  him  to  do  ?  It  was.  And  he  ought  to  repeat 
it  again  and  again  and  again,  till  it  is  the  rule,  and  not  the  exception, 
in  his  conduct.  The  trouble  is,  not  that  we  have  too  much  of  good 
works  in  life,  but  that  we  have  too  little  of  them.  What  is  needed 
is,  that  they  shall  enter  into  the  nature  of  character,  and  become 
habit.  They  are  in  and  of  themselves  right.  You  cannot  express  a 
true  word,  you  cannot  perform  a  generous  action,  you  cannot  show 
a  magnanimity,  you  cannot  do  a  kind  thing  in  the  world,  that  God 
does  not  look  upon  it  and  say,  "  It  is  good." 

But  still,  do  not  say  that  your  character  is  good  because  you  have 
accidentally  performed  one  good  deed. 

Among  the  marksmen  standing  thick  around,  there  comes  a  stranger 
who  is  bantered  to  make  a  trial  of  the  rifle ;  and  taking  aim,  and 
drawing  the  trigger,  the  first  shot  strikes  the  bull's-eye.    But  he  will 


A  FLEA  FOB  GOOD  WOFKS.  349 

not  slioot  again.  He  might  shoot  fifty  times  and  not  hit  the  marli. 
And  that  one  lucky  shot  does  not  make  him  a  skillful  mr.rksman, 
does  it  ? 

If,  then,  a  man  does  a  good  act,  it  is  a  good  act,  even  though  his 
charactei-  is  not  good.  He  may  not  be,  in  general,  a  good  man ; 
but  that  particular  thing  is  good.  And  the  reason  why  he  is  not  a 
good  man  is,  that  there  is  no  continuity  to  his  good  deeds ;  there  is 
no  motive-power  inside  of  his  disposition  to  make  it  continuous. 
What  we  mean  by  good  men  is,  not  men  who  now  and  then  do  a 
good  act,  but  men  who  join  one  good  act  to  another.  It  is  men 
the  whole  tendency  of  whose  life  is  the  production  of  good  things, 
kind  things,  right  things. 

And  the  reason  why  I  say  that  a  moralist  is  in  a  dangerouF  state, 
is  not  in  a  salvable  condition,  is,  not  that  single  things  are  not  right 
and  good,  but  that  single  things  do  not  make  character ;  that  tino-le 
things  do  not  make  disposition ;  and  that  it  is  character  and  dispo- 
sition that  make  manhood.  And  if  in  the  general  tenor  of  a  man's 
life  he  is  selfish,  and  proud,  and  sordid,  and  worldly,  he  is  selfish  and 
proud  and  sordid  and  worldly  in  spite  of  any  incidental  good  thino-s 
that  he  may  do. 

All  feelings,  I  remark,  first,  social  and  moral,  tend  to  some  ex- 
pression in  conduct.  Men  are  benefited  if  their  feelings  have  this 
expression  allowed  them.  Unfruitful  emotion  is  to  be  suspected. 
Where  unfruitful  emotion  is  continuous,  we  may  be  sure  that  it  per- 
forms nothing.  Feeling  acts  as  an  impulse,  as  a  spur,  as  a  spring. 
It  is  that  which  puts  a  man  forward  in  a  certain  course.  And  when 
feelings  are  excited,  and  they  put  nothing  forward,  they  are  some- 
times even  dangerous  to  a  man.  Even  if  they  be  not  dangerous,  they 
are  incomplete,  as  emotions.  For  a  perfect  feeling  is  one  which,  risino- 
from  normal  persuasion,  eventuates  in  some  form  of  action ;  in  some 
form  of  incarnation ;  in  some  deed  performed.  Even  if  they  are  not 
spurious,  unfruitful  feelings  are  likely  to  become  morbid,  irreo-ular 
mischievous.     Action  is  the  right  outlet  of  emotion. 

The  law  of  self-culture,  therefore,  requires  good  works,  as  the 
very  way  of  having  good  feelings.  I  do  not  believe  that  a  man  can 
ever  have  good  feelings  which  do  him  good  permanently,  unless  they 
are  feelings  which  take  on  some  outward  shape. 

Now  and  then  you  go  to  meeting.  You  feel  good  all  day  Sun- 
day;  you  feel  happy;  you  feel  like  singing.  But  you  do  not  pluck 
up  one  single  fault  by  the  roots.  You  do  not  weed  out  one  wrong 
tendency.  You  do  not  act  any  more  divinely  toward  man,  woman, 
or  child.     You  do  not  change  your  business.     You  do  not  illuminate 


350  A  FLU  A  FOE  GOOD  W0EK8. 

one  dark  place.  You  go  to  church  ;  and  what  with  singing  and 
preaching  and  fellowship  of  society,  you  feel,  as  you  say,  greatly  re- 
freshed;  you  feel  greatly  comforted  and  lifted  up.  Having  gone 
to  church  in  the  morning,  you  go  again  in  the  evening,  and  get  a  sur- 
feit of  feeling.  And  you  go  on  Friday  night  again.  And  you  would 
go  on  Wednesday  night  again.  And  you  would  go  on  Monday 
and  Tuesday  nights.  Now  what  is  the  result,  but  that  there  is  a 
constant  excitation  of  feeling  ?  And  it  is  right  feeling.  It  is  devout 
feeling ;  it  is  friendly  feeling ;  it  is  social  feeling  ;  and  in  its  nature 
it  is  all  right  enough.  But  this  is  the  point :  it  is  the  most  danger- 
ous thing  a  person  can  do  to  have  a  continuous  flow  of  feeling  that 
does  not  expend  itself  in  some  form  of  action.  It  produces  morbidity, 
unfruitfulness  of  feeling,  irregularity  of  feeling. 

Therefore,  in  proportion  as  men  go  to  meeting,  they  must  be 
saints  out  of  meeting.  It  will  not  do  to  be  saints  in  meeting  and 
sinners  everywhere  else.  If  you  go  where  your  feelings  are  kindled, 
where  your  emotions  are  raised  to  an  ecstatic  condition,  you  are  in 
a  dangerous  situation.  That  is  a  state  in  which  persons  are  liable 
to  fall  into  a  kind  of  crystaline  mood,  in  which  there  is  an  im- 
mense deal  of  self-deception.  And  from  this  you  will  understand 
the  diiference  between  religion  and  religiousness,  or  religiosity. 
There  is  nothing  more  dangerous  than  intensity  of  feeling,  and 
paucity  of  conduct  as  the  result  of  that  feeling ;  and  just  in  propor- 
tion to  the  moral  emotion  excited,  must  be  the  moral  conduct  flow- 
ing therefrom.  Every  feeling  ought  to  ultimate  in  some  action,  or 
course  of  action.  We  are  to  change,  we  are  to  incarnate  these 
emotional  states  into  physical  triumphs,  or  they  will  not  be  whole- 
some. 

I  think  there  is  a  great  deal  too  much  going  to  meeting,  there- 
fore. If  we  could  distribute  going  to  church  so  that  those  who  do 
not  go  at  all  should  go  some,  and  so  that  those  that  go  too  much 
should  go  less,  and  act  more ;  if  we  could  make  a  general  average 
so  that  everybody  should  go  as  often  as  would  be  profitable,  it 
would  be  far  better  than  it  is  now.  And  if  those  who  feel  a  great 
deal,  felt  less  and  did  more,  seeing  to  it  that  every  feeling,  like  a 
flail,  should  come  down  and  bring  out  some  wheat  on  the  great  thresh- 
ing floor  of  life,  we  all  should  be  more  benefited.  Let  good  works 
spring  from  good  feelings ;  and  be  alarmed  when  you  have  a  great 
deal  of  good  feeling  and  but  little  of  good  works. 

Good  works,  I  remark  secondly,  as  the  proper  exponent  of  good 
feelings,  are  the  most  powerful  persuasion  to  faith  and  to  religion. 
There  are  a  thousand  who  can  understand  a  good  action  where  there 
is  one  who  can  understand  an  abstract  doctrme. 


A  PLEA  FOB  GOOD  WORKS.  351 

Now,  I  am  far  from  saying  that  religion  is  not  to  have  its  phil- 
osophy, and  that  philosophy  is  not  to  be  preached ;  but  I  affirm  that 
while  to  indoctrinate  a  congregation  in  philosophy  is  important,  it  is 
not  so  important  as  to  indoctrinate  that  congregation  in  the  prac- 
ticalness of  good  living.  And  if  in  preaching  there  was  a  larger  in- 
terpretation of  men's  nature  to  themselves ;  if  their  faculties  were 
better  delineated  to  them;  if  the  temptations  to  which  they  are 
liable  were  oftener  pointed  out  to  them,  and  the  mode  of  fortifying 
themselves  against  those  temptations  were  made  more  plain  to  them ; 
if  the  exigencies  into  which  their  feelings  are  sure  to  be  brought 
were  more  fully  explained  to  them,  and  the  ways  of  extricating 
themselves  therefrom  were  more  faithfully  expounded  to  them,  I 
think  the  results  throughout  the  community  would  be  much  more 
satisfactory  than  those  which  flow  from  what  is  called  theological 
instruction. 

As  I  have  said,  doctrinal  preaching  does  not  influence  men  so 
strongly  as  the  sight  of  good  actions,  A  good  docti'ine  will  excite 
a  man's  judgment,  and  take  hold  of  his  conscience;  but  there  is 
something  more  powerful  than  a  good  doctrine.  It  is  a  good  life. 
Christ  understood  that,  in  theory  and  in  practice.  He  healed,  and 
then  taught.  He  fed  before  he  preached.  He  acted  first,  and  then 
he  instructed.  More  than  that,  he  laid  down  this  maxim  of  conduct: 
"  Let  your  lipht  so  shine  before  men,  that  they  may  see  your  good  works, 
and  glorily  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven." 

It  was  a  sight  of  men's  kindness,  and  generosity,  and  justice, 
and  patience,  and  fortitude  that  was  to  teach  the  Gospel  to  primi- 
tive ages.  It  was  that  which  made  it  a  power  of  life  among  God's 
children.  Examples  of  this  thing  are  constantly  before  us.  Every- 
bady  has  \a&bete  noir;  and  Christians  have  theirs.  We  are  brought 
up  to  hate  the  devil ;  and  devil  is  the  name  for  whatever  we  do  hate. 
And  while  we  have  our  little  devils  at  home,  and  in  business 
and  in  the  street,  and  elsewhere,  we  have  also  our  little  Christian 
devils ;  and  those  are  other  denominations.  "We  are  ahvays 
taught,  therefore,  first  to  love  our  church,  secondly  to  love  God  and 
thirdly  to  hate  all  other  churches.  I  do  not  say  that  that  is  the 
actual  creed  ;  but  I  say  that  to  a  large  extent  it  is  the  way  things 
go.  People  express  themselves  strongly.  They  thank  God  that  they 
were  born  in  this  church.  They  thank  God  that  they  were  always 
brought  vp  in  this  church.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  they  express 
themselves  not  so  complimentary  in  regai'd  to  other  churches. 

For  instance,  there  are  a  great  many  who  do  not  think  any  better 
of  the  Quakei-s  than  they  ought  to  think;  who  call  them  "idealists  " 
"dreamers,"  "  visionists,"  and  say  that  there  is  nothing  to  them j 


352  A  FLU  A  FOB  GOOD  WOBKS. 

•who  employ  all  sorts  of  disparaging  phrases  in  speaking  of  them. 
Then  there  are  a  great  many  who  do  not  believe  in  Unitarians  and 
XJniversalists,  nor  in  their  belief.  And  then  there  are  a  great 
many  who  have  a  most  salutary  and  edifying  horror  of  the  Roman 
Catholics.  And  then  there  are  a  great  many  who  think  that  High  Cal- 
vinists — the  old,  stern,  blue-jacket  Calvinists — are  intolerable.  Oh  ! 
they  can  scarcely  suppress  the  horror  which  they  have  of  them.  So 
things  are  parceled  out ;  and  everybody  has  some  religion  that  he 
hates. 

Now,  perhaps,  a  man  brought  up  in  that  spirit  drifts  out  into  life. 
He  has  come  to  feel  that  there  is  nothing  like  being  a  good  Presby- 
terian, as  his  father  was  before  him.  He  goes  into  the  church  ;  and 
he  has  an  idea  that  he  may  be  an  elder  before  he  dies.  He  has 
heard  a  great  deal  about  Quakers  ;  but  he  has  had  no  opinion  of 
them  at  all.  He  goes  into  the  war,  and  is  made  sick  by  exposure ; 
and  finally,  when  he  is  helpless,  and  has  no  one  to  care  for  him,  he  is 
found  by  some  Quakers,  and  taken  into  their  little  community,  and 
nursed  and  nourished  with  great  simplicity  and  great  gentleness. 
He  sees  no  ostentation  among  them,  but  great  truthfulness,  and  un- 
bounded patience  of  love.  As  soon  as  he  is  able  to  go  about,  he  vists 
one  house  and  another,  and  finds  them  everywhere  the  same.  No 
efibrt  is  made  to  proselyte  him.  No  controversy  is  gotten  up  to  con- 
vince him  that  he  is  wrong  and  that  they  are  right.  But  he  sees  how 
they  live ;  how  devout  they  are ;  how  pure-minded  they  are ;  how 
Berene  they  are  ;  how  truly  spiritual  they  are.  And  by  the  time  he 
gets  well,  and  goes  back  to  his  father's  house,  his  feelings  are  so 
changed  that  it  will  not  do  for  anybody  to  rail  against  the  Quakers 
in  his  presence.  Although  he  was  brought  up  to  think  the  least  of 
them,  yet,  after  being  among  them,  and  seeing  their  good  works,  he 
gloi-ifies  his  Father  which  is  in  heaven,  from  the  light  of  their  example 
and  piety. 

What  has  taken  place  ?  Has  he  read  Fox's  works  ?  Has  he 
studied  and  acquainted  himself  with  the  Quaker  system  of  philosophy? 
Nothing  of  the  sort.  But  he  has  observed  their  life ;  and  he  says, 
"  Those  people  are  Christians,  or  else  there  are  not  any  Chrisrians." 

Another  man  has  been  brought  up  so  that  he  is  tremendously 
orthodox.  He  would  no  more  go  into  a  Unitarian  church  than  he 
wovxld  go  into  a  theater.  He  feels  about  that  very  much  as  many 
people  feel  about  coming  to  Plymouth  Church  !  But  in  the  course 
of  providence  he  is  thrown  into  a  Unitarian  family.  He  is  a  very 
severe  man  in  his  disposition,  and  he  finds  himself  met  by  people  of 
the  most  singular  sweetness — people  that  are  utterly  unfierce  ;  and  he 
feels  rebuked  in  their  presence.     Some  day  he  utters  such  speeches 


A  FLEA  FOB  GOOD  WOBKS.  353 

that  the  very  children  look  at  him  with  horror  ;  and  he  finds  him- 
self a  publican  and  a  heathen  in  this  Unitarian  family.  And  his 
ideas  begin  to  change.  After  he  has  been  with  them  a  month,  he 
finds  great  want  of  moral  tone  in  himself.  He  is  very  orthodox. 
His  doctrines  come  together  like  irons  in  a  machine ;  and  men  are 
gromid  to  powder  by  controversy  who  get  into  his  mill.  But  when 
he  sees  how  these  people  manage  their  temper  .and  feelings  ;  when 
he  beholds  their  forbearance,  and  generosity,  and  gentleness,  and 
kindness,  he  cannot  resist  his  convictions  any  longer,  and  he  says, 
"  I  do  not  know  how  to  account  for  it ;  but  one  thing  I  do  believe, 
that  somehow  or  other  such  Unitarians  will  be  saved."  He  cannot  get 
it  through  his  theology,  but  he  has  got  it  through  his  heart. 

"Well,  what  is  it?  He  has  seen  good  works — Christian  good 
works.  He  has  seen  real  Christian  dispositions  working  themselves 
out  in  real  Christian  actions.  And  the  sight  ol  these  is  more  than 
controversy  or  reasoning  can  be. 

Now,  if  there  is  anything  that  we  feel  free  to  do,  and  justified  in 
doing,  and  expect  to  be  praised  for  doing,  it  is  reviling  the  Catholics. 
"We  are  doubtless  all  in  sympathy  liere.  We  do  not  believe  in  a 
Pope,  nor  in  Cardinals,  nor  in  Bishops,  nor  in  Priests,  nor  in  their 
principles.  We  are  all  at  unity  in  this  respect.  It  is  not  troublesome 
to  get  people  together  in  hating.  It  is  only  in  loving  that  it  is  hard 
to  make  people  one. 

So  our  poor  boys  felt  who  went  South  ;  and  after  desperate 
conflicts,  some  of  them,  wounded,  and  more  dead  than  alive,  were 
taken  from  the  battle-fields  to  hospitals  where  they  were  at- 
tended by  "  Sisters  of  Charity."  Here  were  these  women,  acting 
under  the  supervision  of  their  pi-iests,  performing  good  works  night 
and  day,  without  weariness,  without  a  self-thought  apparently,  kind 
as  kindness  itself,  and  giving  new  light  and  luster  and  interpretation 
to  the  divine  patience,  by  giving  new  models  of  it.  And  the  youth 
who  started  for  the  ai"my  a  great  Protestant,  who  went  into  the 
war  feeling  that  all  Catholics  would  be  damned,  for  a  long  time  re- 
sists the  influence  of  the  gentleness  and  kindness  which  he  receives 
at  the  hands  of  these  women ;  but  by  the  time  he  is  well  enough  to 
go  home,  he  is  ready  to  fight  for  that  part  of  the  Catliolic  Church, 
at  least,  called  "  Sisters  of  Charity." 

What  has  won  that  boy  over  to  this  feeling  toward  them  ?  They 
have  not  read  him  any  argument  in  favor  of  their  religion.  They 
have  not  placed  in  his  hand  any  book  setting  forth  the  principles  of 
their  faith.  They  have  not  shown  any  improper  desire  to  win  him. 
They  have  not  resorted  to  any  offensive  method  of  producing  an  im- 
pression on  his  imagination  or  heart  or  understanding.     But  he  will 


£54  A  PLEA  FOB  GOOD  WOBKS. 

tell  you  that  if  there  are  any  Christians  in  this  world,  thei/  are 
Christians.  What  has  dotie  it  ?  The  sight  of  their  good  works  has 
done  it. 

Here  is  a  stern,  granite-faced  old  Calvinist.  All  the  neighbor- 
borhood  know  how  hard  he  is.  The  man  that  stumbles  on  him  shall 
be  broken ;  and  the  man  on  whom  he  stumbles  shall  be  ground  to 
dust.  He  IS  one  of  the  hardest  of  hard  men.  Yet,  by  and  by  there 
will  come  round  an  exigency  in  which  you  will  come  under  the 
shadow  of  that  man's  wing,  and  he  will  protect  you  ;  and  then  all  those 
qualities  which  have  seemed  so  hard  to  you,  will  seem  as  the  walls 
of  a  house  when  a  storm  is  raging.  The  stronger  they  are,  and  the 
harder  they  are,  the  better  you  like  it  when  once  you  get  inside. 
Only  let  his  feeling  come  out  in  the  shape  of  good  actions,  and  you 
will  say,  "  Oh !  after  all,  when  you  come  to  know  the  man  clear  down 
inside,  there  is  a  great  deal  that  is  good  and  beautiful  in  him.  Pity 
that  he  does  not  show  it  more,  that  other  folks  might  see  it."  You 
have  found  it  out  inside. 

My  brethren,  you  never  saw  a  man  that  had  a  feeling  or  quality 
of  truth,  of  justice,  or  of  love,  and  gave  expression  to  it,  that  the 
sio-ht  of  it  did  not  produce  the  conviction  in  those  that  looked  upon 
it  that  he  was  a  Christian  man.  You  never  saw  a  man  living  better 
than  you  lived,  that  it  was  not  brought  to  your  mind  more  power 
fully  than  a  sermon  could  have  brought  it,  "I  lack  !  I  lack  !"  And 
this  is  the  meaning  of  the  Saviour,  when  he  says  : 

"  Let  your  light  so  shine  before  men,  that  they  may  sec  your  good  works, 
and  glorify  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven." 

A  single  thought  more.  One  says,  "  Suppose  I  have  no  right 
feelino-s  ?  You  say  that  good  works  are  to  flow  from  right  feelings  . 
that  rio-ht  feelings  are  to  be  wrought  out  into  right  actions ;  but  sup- 
pose I  have  no  such  feelings,  what  am  I  to  do  ?  Must  I  perform  the 
right  actions  anyhow  ?"  Yes,  certainly.  Right  actions  performed 
without  right  feelings  are  imperfect,  and  are  less  influential  than 
they  would  be  if  they  were  accompanied  by  right  feelings  ;  yet  they 
have  a  mission  in  life,  and  do  an  important  work  when  thrown  into 
the  mixture  of  human  experience. 

As,  on  the  one  hand,  feeling  ought  to  take  on  some  form  of  con- 
duct •  so,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  law  that  conduct  tends  to  work 
back  and  produce  the  feeling  from  which  it  ought  to  spring.  Let  me 
illustrate. 

If  a  man  feels  generously,  let  him  do  something  generous.  Let 
the  emotion  be  followed  by  its  appropriate  action  ;  and  the  tendency 
of  the  action  will  be  to  go  on  and  repeat  itself.  But  a  person  says, 
"  I  do  not  feel  generously."    Then,  I  say,  perform  the  action  without 


A  PLEA  FOB  GOOP  WOEES.  355 

the  fec4ing,  and  the  performance  will  tend  to  excite  the  feeling.  K 
you  act  pityingly,  though  you  do  not  feel  pity,  you  will  find  that  a 
tendency  to  pity  will  be  excited  in  you.  If  you  act  benevolently, 
you  will  find  that  benevolence  itself  Avill  be  quickened  in  you.  If 
you  act  justly,  conscience  will  begin  to  be  stirred.  The  way  to 
educate  moral  feeling  is  to  iterate  and  reiterate  the  effects-  which 
that  feeling  would  produce  if  were  excited  in  the  bosom. 

So  then,  if  a  man  says,  "  I  am  not  a  Christian,  and  I  do  not  feel 
bound  to  perform  Christian  duties,"  he  has  an  erroneous  idea  of  how 
to  become  a  Christian.  One  way  is  to  begin  to  act  like  a  Christian. 
Thousands  there  are  in  this  congregation  who  are  standing  wistfully 
hoping  that  they  may  ere  long  be  Christians ;  yea,  who  mean 
to  enter  upon  an  active  Christian  life ;  but  who  do  not  feel  that  they 
are  wound  up  yet.  They  are  saying  in  themselves,  "  My  intentions 
are  good ;  my  purpose  is  right  ;  I  mean  to  enter  upon  a  Chx'istian 
life,  and  do  my  duty  as  a  Christian  ;  but  I  do  not  yet  see  my  way 
clear  to  begin."  My  advice  to  you  is,  Begin  where  you  ai*e,  and  do 
the  things  which  lie  next  to  you  that  a  Christian  man  should.  For 
that  is  one  of  the  roads  to  Christian  life.  Do  not  fail  to  act  like  a 
Christian,  even  if  you  cannot  feel  like*  one.  Do  not  wait  for  feeling.  If 
you  do  not  feel,  then  act,  that  you  may  feel.  Do  the  things  that  you 
would  do  if  you  were  a  Christian.  There  is  nothing  that  we  ought 
to  do  as  Christians  that  we  ought  not  to  do  anyhow.  You  are 
bound  to  fill  up  your  life  with  a  better  manhood.  This  is  obligatory 
on  all  men  and  under  all  circumstances.  So,  whatever  is  right  and 
just  and  proper,  that  do.  Do  not  wait  for  any  technical  experience. 
Do  not  wait  to  be  carried  by  this  or  that  emotion  to  any  particular 
point.  Whatever  is  true,  whatever  is  lovely,  whatever  is  of  good 
report,  do  to-day,  do  at  once,  and  do  continuously.  And  pray  God 
that  to  these  outward  actions  there  may  be  added  the  experience  of 
those  inward  emotions  which  shall  make  conduct  spontaneous  and 
bountiful. 

Not  to  dwell  longer  on  this  subject,  though  it  is  full  of  other  ap- 
plications, I  repeat  the  words  with  which  I  began : 

"  This  is  a  faithful  saying,  and  these  things  I  will  that  thou  affirm  con 
etantly,  that  they  which  have  believed  in  God«might  be  careful  to  maintain 
good  works.  These  things  are  good  and  profitable  unto  men."  "  And  let 
ours  also  learn  to  maintain  good  works  for  necessary  uses,  that  they  be  not 
unfruitful." 


35G  A  FLU  A  FOB  GOOD  WORKS. 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 


Show  us  that  thou  dost  not  shut  out  from  thy  thoughts  any  that  thou  hast 
created ;  that  thine  eye  is  open  to  those  that  are  afar  off  as  well  as  to  those 
that  are  near ;  and  that  thy  heart  is  toward  those  that  are  needy,  even  though 
their  transgression  hath  made  them  needy. 

Thou  art  the  God  of  all  help .  Thou  lovest  truth ;  thou  lovest  righteous- 
ness; and  thou  hast  ordained  that  they  shall  stand;  and  upon  them,  as  upon 
foundations,  thou  wilt  build  thy  kingdom,  and  perfect  it  to  the  uttermost. 
And  thou  wilt  turn  out  of  it  whatsoever  offends  or  maketh  a  lie.  Yet  in  thy 
great  work  thou  wilt  hring  forth  strength  out  of  weakness,  joy  out  of  sorrow, 
purity  out  of  imperfection.  Thou  wilt  teach  men  patiently,  and  with 
infinite  long-suffering.  Thou  wilt  not  cast  away  thine  heritage,  nor  destroy 
those  who  have  come  short  of  obedience.  Thou  art  a  God  of  mercy;  thou 
art  a  God  of  grace  and  goodness ;  and  it  is  this  goodness  of  thine  that  leads 
to  repentance.  But  for  thy  patience  with  us,  but  for  thy  paternal  forbear- 
ance we  had  despaired  long  ago,  and,  with  face  turned,  gone  away  forever 
from  thee;  but  thy  mercy  hath  held  us  ;  thy  goodness  hath  encouraged  us; 
and  we  have  been  the  recipients  of  thy  pardon.  Thou  hast  spared  in  times 
past,  and  art  still  sparing ;  and  we  desire  to  give  thanks  to  thee  together,  to- 
day, for  all  the  mercies  which  we  have  had ;  for  all  the  judgments  which  have 
been  averted;  for  all  the  worthy  plans  which  tho.i  hast  inspired  us  to  form, 
and  which  have  come  to  pass ;  and  Jor  all  the  escapes  which  thou  hast  granted 
us,  delivering  us  out  of  snares  and  troubles.  We  desire  to  thank  thee  for 
the  whole  memory  of  thy  grace  to  us  from  the  time  that  we  were  born, 
through  our  childhood,  and  all  the  way  of  our  life  upward.  More  are  the 
things  that  are  forgotten  than  are  the  things  that  are  remembered.  More 
are  those  things  that  are  unknown  and  unnoticed  than  are  those  tnat 
ever  come  to  our  knowledge.  When  the  books  of  God  shall  be  opened  to  us 
in  the  life  to  come,  how  wondrous  will  be  that  path  of  providence  through 
which  thou  wilt  have  led  us,  O  all-guiding  Father!  How  strange  it  will  be 
that  we  have  known  so  little  of  things  which  were  so  eminent,  and  in  which 
was  our  very  immortality!  We  rejoice  to  believe  that  we  are  not  guided 
alone  by  the  wisdom  which  we  possess,  and  that  it  is  not  our  skill  only  that 
is  our  defense.  Higher  than  our  thought  move  the  eternal  circuits  of  thy 
thought;  and  wider  abroad  than  our  arm  is  the  omnipotence  of  thine  hand ; 
and  all  around  us  is  God,  loving,  thinking,  guiding,  defending.  In  thee  we 
live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being.  And  we  rejoice  that  in  the  plenitude 
of  thy  nature  is  the  certitude  of  our  salvation.  We  are  saved,  not  because 
we  are  good,  but  because  thou  art  good ;  not  because  we  are  perfect,  but 
because  thy  mercy  overflows  the  bounds  and  measures  of  perfection.  And 
thou  dost  take  to  the  perfection  of  thine  own  power  the  imperfect.  And 
so  we  have  hope  of  everlasting  life. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  accept  our  thanks  for  all  the  sweetness 
and  blessedness  which  we  hav^  had  in  the  knowledge  and  hope  of  Jesus 
Christ.  For  the  fulfillment  of  his  promises  which  have  been  to  us  yea  and 
amen,  for  all  the  seasons  of  prayer  which  we  have  enjoyed,  for  communion 
one  with  another,  for  the  blessed  fellowship  of  labor  in  the  vineyard  of  the 
Lord,  for  all  the  hope  and  inspiration  which  we  have  had .  -vt^  render  thee 
thanks.  It  has  not  been  in  vain  that  we  have  served  thee.  It  has  not  been 
in  vain  that  we  have  been  called  by  name  of  thee. 

And  now,  we  desire  to  go  forward  in  thy  work,  and  to  bear  well  the  yoke 
and  the  burden,  and  to  find  them,  as  we  have  found  them,  light  and  easy. 


A  FLEA  FOB  GOOF  WORKS.  357 

We  pray  tliat  thou  wilt  accept,  to-day,  the  offering  of  thy  people,  which 
they  bring,  of  thoughts  and  feelings,  and  present  before  thee.  Make  thyself 
known  to  every  one.  May  each  heart  that  prays  to  thee  hear  itself  called  by 
name.  May  its  most  secret  wishes  be  made  known  to  tliee.  Or,  if  the  wants 
of  any  rise  inexplicable  and  unknown  to  them,  do  thou,  O  G  od,  who  seest  the 
secret  intents  of  the  heart,  discern  what  each  one's  need  is;  and  be  thou  a 
Saviour  according  to  their  needs. 

And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  hear  those  who  exprcos  their  gladness  and 
their  joyfulness  in  thy  presence  to-day.  Hear  those  who  come  hither  in 
fuiflllment  of  vows  to-day,  and  stand  among  thy  people  to  make  mention  of 
thy  goodness.  And  hear  those  who  desire  to  enter  into  covenant  and  promise 
with  thee  to-day.  And  hear,  to-day,  those  that  bring  with  them  their  sor- 
row, their  trouble;  those  who  ask  release;  those  who  request  that  burdens 
may  be  removed;  those  who  entreat  thee  to  grant  that  they  may  be  deliv- 
ered from  temptation;  those  who  are  in  the  snare,  and  pray  that  they  may 
escape  as  a  bird  escapes  from  the  net  of  the  fowler. 

We  pray  for  those  who  are  troubled  in  the  household,  and  for  their  chil- 
dren, and  for  their  companions,  and  for  their  friends.  O,  thou  that  seest  the 
thoughts  of  the  heart!  wilt  thou  not  look  upon  that  which  we  appear  to  be 
one  to  another,  but  look  inward,  and  discern  the  very  nature  of  our 
influence. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  us  according  to  the  multitude  of  thy  tender 
mercies;  according  to  the  greatness  of  thy  loving-kindness.  And  we  beseech 
of  thee  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  for  whom  we  should  pray.  Remember  thy 
seryants,  everywhere,  that  to-day  preach  the  gospel  of  Christ.  May  they  be 
able  to  do  it  with  purity,  and  with  directness,  and  with  power  from  on  high. 
Be  with  thy  servants  that  are  assembled  for  worship  everywhere.  May  their 
services  be  such  as  shall  be  acceptable  to  thee,  and  such  as  shall  nourish  thy 
jeople  into  all  true  greatness. 

We  pray  that  thy  blessing  may  rest  upon  all  those,  everywhere,  to-day, 
whom  our  thoughts  remember,  whether  they  be  upon  the  sea  or  on  the  land, 
at  home  or  abroad.  O  Lord !  we  commit  to  thee  those  who  are  dear  to  us, 
and  pray  for  them.  And  we  pray  for  strangers  in  our  midst,  that  they  may, 
in  the  house  of  God,  find  their  brethren  and  home. 

And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  fulfill  thy  promises  which  have 
respect  to  thy  Church,  and  which  have  respect  to  the  nations  of  the  earth. 
And  let  that  day  so  long  lingering  upon  the  morning  horizon  at  last  break 
over  the  hills,  and  the  Sun  of  rigliteousness  arise  with  healing  in  his  beams. 
Cast  down  oppression.  Destroy  superstition.  Purge  ignorance  out  from 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  Lift  up  the  race  into  civilization,  and  into 
purity,  and  into  power.  And  bring  to  pass  the  promises  of  the  latter-day 
glory. 

And  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit  shall  be  praises,  evermore. 
A^ncn. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMOK 

Our  Father,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest 
upon  the  word  of  instruction  delivered.  Grant  that  we  may  not  be  carried 
away  into  incorrect  thought  or  believing.  By  thy  Spirit  open  our  under- 
standing. By  thy  Spirit  guide  our  experience.  By  our  experience,  quick- 
ened by  thy  divine  love,  lead  us  into  all  truth.  We  pray  that  we  may  be 
more  thoughtful  of  others ;  that  we  maj  be  more  benevolent ;  that  we  may 


£58  A  FLEA  FOB  GOOD  W0BK8. 

be  more  just;  that  we  may  be  more  true  and  pure  in  our  intents;  and  that 
the  scope  and  breadth  of  our  life-labor  may  be  more  ana  more  ample.  And 
grant  that  when  we  shall  have  passed  through  the  school  and  experience  of 
this  lower  state,  we  may  rise,  leaving  behind  the  inexperience  of  the  body, 
into  that  spirit-land  where,  with  thee  for  our  Teacher  and  Companion,  and 
with  hindrances  gone,  we  shall  rejoice  forever  and  ever  in  the  perfection  of 
the  heavenly  state. 

Aud  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise.  Father,  Son  and  Spirit.    Amen, 


XXTI. 

The  Harmony  of  Justice  and  Love. 


INVOCATION. 

We  rejoice  before  thee,  our  Father,  with  the  rising  light  of  the  day.  We 
rejoice  in  that  better  light,  inwardly  shining  upon  all  that  behold  thee.  And 
grant,  this  morning,  unto  all,  that  light  which  shall  awaken  them,  and  bring 
them  to  the  full  possession  of  themselves,  and  bring  them  into  the  abound- 
ing faith  of  those  who  know  thee,  and  who  recognize  thy  presence.  We 
come  together,  this  morning,  not  so  much  to  make  known  our  wants,  which 
are  altogether  known  to  thee,  and  are  provided  for  by  thee  continually,  as 
to  ask  that  we  may  be  lifted  up  into  the  place  of  children,  that  we  may  be- 
hold thy  feet  not  only,  but  thy  face :  and  that  we  may  be  permitted  to  know 
something  of  the  heart  of  God,  in  which  is  all  our  life  and  hope  and  treasure. 
We  ask  it  in  the  name  of  Jesus  the  Redeemer.   Amen. 


THE  HAEMOM  OP  JUSTICE  AND  LOVE. 


"  Now  the  end  of  the  commandment  is  charity  out  of  a  pure  heart,  and 
of  a  good  conscience,  and  of  faith  unfeigned." — 1  Tim.  i.,  5. 


The  object  that  the  apostle  had  in  uttering  these  words  is  sho\\Tj 
in  the  verse  preceding  : 

"Neither  give  heed  to  fables  and  endless  genealogies  wliich  minister  ques- 
tions [that  is  discussions],  rather  than  godly  edifying  which  is  in  faith." 

He  is  giving  an  exhortation  to  Timothy.  He  is  instructing  him 
how  he  shall  carry  himself,  and  how  he  shall  teach  others  to  carrj 
themselves.  His  exhortation  is  this,  substantially  :  "  The  little,  petty 
questions  that  spring  up  among  the  Jews  and  among  the  Jewish 
Christians,  about  descent,  and  about  ordinances,  and  about  days, 
and  about  observances,  and  about  genealogies — there  is  no  end  bO 
them.  They  only  make  men  dispute  one  with  another ;  and  you 
never  can  settle  them  in  the  world.  Tliey  do  not  make  men  better. 
They  do  not  improve  their  temper ;  they  almost  always  make  them 
more  irritable.  They  do  not  make  them  more  lovely  ;  they  almost 
always  make  them  more  unlovely.  They  do  not  instruct  them  : 
they  almost  always  blind  them.  They  make  them  think  that  they 
know,  when  they  do  not  know.  They  do  not  minister  to  edification," 
Thus  he  speaks  of  those  questions  which  they  were  so  likely  to 
discuss. 

Then  he  declares  what  the  great  end  and  object  of  preaching  is. 
The  end  ot  the  commandment — that  is,  the  foundation  on  which  we 
and  everybody  must  stand  ;  the  foundation  of  all  public  and  private 
instruction  ;  the  thing  which  the  commandment  undertakes  to  bring 
about  in  this  world  ;  the  result  Avhich  it  is  to  produce — this,  the 
apostle  says,  is  charity^  by  which  we  mean  love — the  largest  kind  of 
love — love  formed  "  out  of  a  pure  heart,  and  of  a  good  conscience, 
and  of  faith  unfeigned."  This  is  the  object  of  all  teaching,  of  all 
organization,  of  all  religious  institutions. 

Now,  any  system  of  theology  that,  being  legitimately  preached, 
does  not  produce  "  charity  out  of  a  pure  heart,  and  of  a  good  con- 
science, and  of  faith  unfeigned,"  is  false,  no  matter  what  the  materi- 

V  ^^A.Ii*^9,^^™°'  ^^'^-  ^'  1^''^-  ^KSSON :  I  THES8.  IV.  Hymns  (Plymouth  CoUectlon)  • 


360  THE  HABMONY  OF  JUSTICE  AND  LOTE. 

als  are  tliat  are  put  into  it.  And  every  church  organization  that 
does  not  produce  "  charity  out  of  a  pure  heart,  and  of  a  good  con- 
science, and  of  faith  unfeigned,"  is  not  a  Christian  organization. 
And  any  administration  of  the  truth,  in  the  hands  of  any  cJmrch  or 
sect,  no  matter  whether  it  was  apostolic  or  not,  no  matter  if  Paul, 
and  Peter,  and  a  dozen  like  them,  living  to  be  as  old  as  Methuseleh, 
had  come  down  to  that  church  or  sect,  and  to  that  administration, 
if  it  did  not  produce  in  its  members  "  charity  out  of  a  pure  and 
of  a  good  conscience,  and  of  faith  unfeigned,"  would  not  be  a 
Christian  administration.  For  the  end  of  the  commandment  is 
that.  That  is  the  thing  to  be  produced  by  the  administration  of 
truth,  and  by  organization,  and  by  preaching.  That  is  the  thing 
which  every  man  is  to  aim  at.  That  is  to  be  the  fruit  by  which  we 
shall  know  that  men  are  Christians. 

This  exposition  is  remarkable.  There  are  many  things  in  it 
which  I  shall  not  trouble  you  with  to-day — for  I  shall  resume  it. 
But  the  exposition  of  the  text  itself  is  full  of  philosophy. 

Following  Christ's  declaration  that  on  love  himg  all  the  Old 
Testament  dispensation,  Paul  says,  yet  more  comprehensively,  that 
the  whole  end  and  aim  of  the  command — that  is,  the  old  dispensation 
and  the  new  one — is  Love.  He  declares  that  on  that  they  center. 
He  says  that  this  is  the  one  great  supreme  end.  But  that  which 
is  peculiar  here,  is  this :  that  he  unfolds  that  love  as  complex, 
either  in  its  nature,  or  else  in  its  mode  of  developing  the  mind.  It 
is  not  a  mere  complacency.  It  is  not  good-nature  and  general  kind- 
ness without  any  other  moral  consideration.  True  Christianity — 
that  which  the  term  Christianity  means  in  its  highest  inspiration — 
when  it  speaks  of  divine  love,  requires  that  it  shall  not  be  an  affection 
proceeding  out  of  moral  indifference,  or  out  of  a  low,  flabby  state  of 
half-animal,  half-spii"itual  kindness;  but  that  it  shall  be  a  love  "out 
of  a  pure  heart."  It  is  that  benevolence  which  springs  from  a  na- 
ture in  which  the  highest  moral  sentiment  predominates.  No  man 
is  capable  of  issuing  divine  love,  who  is  living  under  the  control  of 
his  animal  appetites — of  his  pride  and  selfishness.  For  the  love  that 
the  Bible  means,  and  that  the  apostle  here  expounds,  is  that  love 
which  is  capable  of  being  generated  and  issued  out  of  pure  thoughts ; 
out  of  .the  highest  spiritual  sentiments  ;  out  of  the  noblest  moral  in- 
stincts. It  is  the  fruit  and  voice  and  spirit  of  the  highest  part  of  a 
man's  nature,  and  not  of  the  lower  parts  of  his  nature.  It  is  there- 
fore a  love  that  belongs  first  to  God,  and  next  to  us  by  so  much  as 
we  are  divine,  or  are  able  to  approach  in  sympathy  to  the  divine 
elements. 

But  this  is  not  all.    It  is  a  love  which  must  have  other  attributes ; 


TBE  HABMONY  OF  JUSTICE  AND  LO  YE.  36 1 

or  rather,  it  is  a  love  which  must  carry  with  it  those  elements  which 
we  erect  into  attributes  as  if  they  were  separate  from  it,  and  differ- 
ent from  it.  It  is  a  love  which  carries  Avith  it,  as  a  part  of  itself,  "  a 
good  conscience." 

Now,  conscience  is  but  the  generic  term  for  moral  sense.  It  is 
the  fountain  of  truth  ;  and  so  it  carries  the  intellect  Avith  it.  It  ia 
the  fountain  of  rectitude  ;  and  so  it  carries  righteousness  with  it.  It 
is  the  fountain  of  honor ;  and  so  it  carries  all  that  glow  and  sensi- 
bility which  surrounds  the  highest  experience  of  i-cctitude.  A  true 
Christian  love  is  one  which  must  spi'ing  out  of  the  highest  moral 
sentiment,  and  which  must  also  carry  with  it  "  a  good  conscience." 
"A  good  conscience"  is  a  part  of  it.  "A  good  conscience"  ribs  it 
up,  and  gives  it  backbone,  and  makes  it  clear  to  the  core,  solid, 
strong,  efficacious.  Love  without  any  conscience  is  namby-pamby. 
It  is  mush.  True  love  has  in  it  the  noblest  sense  of  character  "  out 
of  a  pure  heart."  True  love  has  in  it  an  all-embracing  sense  of 
truth — the  beauty  of  it,  and  the  reality  of  it.  True  love  is  made  up 
of  elements  which  render  it  necessary  that  it  shall  have  a  discrimi- 
nating regard  for  that  which  is  right.  It  carries  beauty  and  phil- 
osophy and  moral  excellence  in  it.  It  is  a  comprehensive  affection  of 
the  soul. 

Even  all  that  does  not  exhaust  the  wonder  of  this  divine  ex- 
perience of  true  charity,  or  love ;  for  its  full  scope  and  quality  can 
not  be  known  until  we  see  it  with  its  own  atmosphere  about  it.  If  it 
be  simply  an  affection  of  time  and  change,  limiting  itself  by  the 
transient  elements  of  this  world,  then  it  can  in  no  respect  resemble 
that  affection  of  love  which  God  experiences.  Therefore  it  must  have 
elevation  above  all  physical  conditions.  A  true,  divine  and  Christian 
love  must  take  hold  on  the  invisible,  on  the  future,  on  the  infinite,  on 
the  eternal.  And  that  is  the  scope  of  the  term  "  faith  "  here  used  as 
the  last-named  source  of  that  "  charity "  which  is  the  end  of  the 
commandment — which  is  that  for  which  God  put  the  commandment 
into  this  life. 

What,  now,  is  charity  ?  It  is  that  sublime  likeness  to  God  wliich 
carries  with  it  purity  of  heart,  conscience,  and  faith.  It  is  the 
generic  term  for  the  truths  which  lie  outside  of  this  life — for  super- 
sensuous  truths — for  truths  that  are  invisible — for  truths  Avhich 
belong  to  places  and  realms  that  are  beyond  the  reach  of  the  body, 
or  of  scientific  truths ;  for  science  limits  itself  to  that  which  the  body 
can  take  hold  of  And  this  is  that  which  the  apostle  says  the  com- 
raandment  was  put  into  the  world  for.  And  his  business  was  so  to 
preach  and  to  hold  up  that  commandment  as  to  produce  this  kind  of 
love,  or  charity. 


362  THE  JIABMONY  OF  JUSTICE  AND  LOVE. 

From  this  consideration  of  the  nature  of  true  divine  love,  or 
charity,  light  may  be  thrown  upon  the  administration  of  justice  and 
benevolence  in  the  divine  government. 

It  has  been  the  habit  of  men,  on  the  one  side,  to  feel,  and  some- 
times to  teach,  that  justice  has  a  field  all  to  itself,  and  that  mercy  has 
a  field  all  to  itself;  as  if  they  were  two  very  difierent  things,  not 
only,  but  as  if  when  one  acted  the  other  did  not.  In  other  words, 
as  in  human  experience  men  are  angry,  thoroughly  angry,  so  that 
they  feel  nothing  else  but  anger,  and  then,  when  that  has  passed 
away  they  are  thoroughly  good-natured  so  as  not  to  be  at  all  angry, 
— their  minds  being  like  a  handle  with  two  blades,  one  of  which  being 
open  the  other  must  be  shut,  or  one  of  which  being  shut  the  other 
must  be  oj^en ;  so  men  have  transferred  this  purely  human  affection, 
according  to  its  weakness,  to  the  divine  administration  ;  and  there 
has  been  an  impression  that  God  was  a  God  of  benevolence,  to  be 
sure,  but  that  he  was  also  a  God  of  justice.  It  has  been  supposed 
that  sometimes  he  is  a  God  of  justice,  and  sometimes  a  God  of 
love ;  and  that  when  he  is  the  one,  he  can  not  be  the  other.  And 
when  he  is  a  God  of  justice  it  behooves  sinners  to  look  out  for  his 
sword,  that  goes  flashing  through  the  universe — that  and  nothing 
else ;  but  when  he  has  vindicated  his  will,  then  his  sword  is  put  up, 
and  then  comes  the  scepter  of  mercy — that,  and  nothing  else.  As 
if  mercy  ever  could  exist,  and  be  a  divine  quality,  unless  it  had 
justice  in  it  all  the  time !  As  if  any  justice  could  exist  that  had  not 
mercy  in  it  to  the  very  grain  and  core !  As  if  you  could  separate  the 
two  !  As  if,  because  we,  in  our  whole  animal  conditions,  do  separate 
them,  and  because  we  are  unable  to  rise  to  the  highest  forms  of 
moral  development,  we  were  to  carry  the  analogue  up,  and  separate 
love  and  mercy  in  the  divine  administration,  and  make  God  as  poor 
and  meagre  as  men  are  !     But  such  has  been  the  habit. 

This  has  tended  to  raise  up  reacting  views.  There  have  come  up 
on  the  two  sides  of  this  disposition,  two  general  schools  of  theology, 
one  of  which  revolves  around  the  conception  of  God  as  a  benevolent 
governor.  And  his  benevolence,  to  their  thought,  is  largely  a  be- 
nevolence of  moral  indifference,  or  of  fatalism — or  fatal  good  nature. 
They  usually  are  a  rebound  from  the  other  school — from  those  men 
who  have  constitutionally  a  large  conscience,  and  large  reflective 
faculties. 

These  latter  form  to  themselves  an  idea  of  government  among 
men.  They  believe  that  law  is  indispensable  to  good  government, 
to  national  life,  and  to  individual  happiness.  And  by  their  con- 
stitution they  are  on  the  side  of  justice,  as  the  administration  of 
law.     "P  It  down,"  they  say,  "  put  down  whatever  will  disturb  so- 


THE  HAEMONT  OF  JUSTICE  AND  LOVE.  363 

ciety.  If  it  will  get  out  of  the  way,  let  it ;  but  if  it  will  not,  put  it 
down.  And  as  much  pain  as  is  necessary  to  do  it  must  be  inflicted." 
They  transfer  that  which  is  human  to  the  divine  nature,  and  say, "  In 
the  infinite  realm  God  is  just,  and  he  must  govern  by  truth,  and  law 
and  justice ;  and  all  that  will  be  true  and  just  and  upright  shall  be  hap- 
py ;  and  all  that  will  not  must  take  the  consequences,  and  be  overwhelm- 
ed— or,  if  they  are  not,  it  will  be  because  there  is  some  special  interpo- 
sition of  divine  mercy.  They  hold  up  the  mechanical  character  of  a 
God  governing,  first,  by  justice.  "For,"  say  they,  "he  must  be 
true,"  "  First  pure,"  they  say,  "  and  then  peaceable."  But  has  not 
a  man  a  right  to  be  peaceable  until  he  is  pure  ?  Do  you  suppose  it 
is  the  absolute,  philosophical,  arithmetical  order,  that  a  man  shall  be 
first  pui-e  and  then  peaceable  ?  Must  we  quarrel  until  we  are  pure  ? 
And  yet,  this  question  is  discussed,  and  arguments  are  plied  to  show 
that  God  must  be  just  before  there  is  room  for  anything  besides 
justice.  It  is  said,  not  only  that  he  must  be  just,  but  that  in 
order  to  save  by  his  Son  he  must  exact  justice  before  he  can  grant 
happiness.  Mercy,  according  to  their  view,  must  stand  back,  as  if 
it  were  something  separable  from  justice^  and  different  from  it.  They 
believe  that  in  the  government  of  God,  first  is  justice,  with  all  its  in- 
finite modes  of  administration ;  with  all  its  infinite  ^^enalties ;  with 
all  its  infinite  outlying  consequences.  Their  idea  of  God  is  that  of  a 
Being  who  stands  in  a  justice  that  is  something  other  and  dif- 
ferent from  the  spirit  of  love.  And  this  idea  has  been  lifted  up  be- 
fore men.  And  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  where  the  most  "  Gospel " 
has  been  preached  (strange  inconsistency !),  there  the  predominant 
idea,  to  this  day,  of  Christians  is,  that  God  is  a  Being  to  be  feared, 
tha:^  he  is  a  "  consuming  fire,"  as  he  is  represented  to  be  in  the  Old 
Testa  nent.  That  has  been  the  one  thought  which  has  cast  a  lurid 
light  ever  communities.  Religion  has  been  made  unattractive,  and 
sometimes  even  repulsive,  because  men  have  held  that  God  was  a 
God  of  justice,  and  of  a  justice  which  was  separate  and  different 
from  love.  As  if  there  could  be  any  justice  but  that  which  love  in- 
spires and  directs  1  And  yet  that  idea  has  crept  into  men's  beliefs, 
and  the  result  has  been  that  there  have  risen  up  two  systems  of  the- 
ology, in  one  of  which  the  predominant  idea  had  been  justice  admin- 
istered by  divine  poioer.  And  this  idea  has  gone  on  augmenting 
and  intensifying,  until  the  hell  made  by  justice  has  been  a  caldron 
only  smaller  than  the  heaven  into  which  myriad  ages  have  been 
pouring  contributions.  And  God,  because  he  was  just,  has  all  this 
time  been  sitting  in  the  topmost  heaven,  carj-ying  on  this  gigantic 
slaughter  of  creation  !  He  has  gone  on  creating  the  eight  hundred 
million  creatures  of  the  globe,  and  pouring  them  endlessly  down, 


864  THE  HARMONY  OF  JUSTICE  AND  LOVE. 

imtauglit,  unhelpecl,  without  good  neighborhood,  without  Christ, 
without  the  Bible,  Avithout  revelation  from  any  source,  under  the 
pressure  of  the  circumstances  around  about  them,  swept  by  a  resist- 
less fate  to  their  pitiful  end,  all  because  God  could  not  spare,  or  did 
not  spare,  or  would  not  spare !  That  has  been  preached  and  held  up 
before  men, 

I  do  not  wonder,  therefore,  that  there  has  been  a  terrific  rebound; 
and  that  there  has  risen  up  on  the  other  side  a  school  of  men  that 
said,  "  Away  with  such  a  bloody  tyranny  !  Away  with  such  a  no- 
tion of  God !  God  is  good — too  good  to  make  suffering."  And  yet, 
the  wail  of  poverty  in  the  street ;  the  winter  wind  that  brings  dis- 
may to  thousands  and  thousands  of  our  fellow  creatures ;  the  myriad 
forms  of  distress  which  exist  throughout  the  world — these  all  teach 
us  that  there  is  a  God  that  will  allow  suffering. 

The  whole  creation  has  "  groaned  and  travailed  in  pain  until  now." 
And  can  it  be  said  that  there  is  no  purpose  in  it,  no  motive  for  it  ? 
Can  it  be  said  that  there  is  to  be  no  disciplinary  suffering  in  this 
world,  and  in  the  world  to  come  ?  And  yet  there  have  been  men 
who  have  made  God  out  to  be  a  Being  so  good  and  kind  that  he  can- 
not bear  to  cause  a  sigh  or  see  a  tear,  that  he  cannot  bear  to  produce 
suffering ;  who  have  made  him  out  to  be  a  pellucid,  smiling,  easy- 
going, good-natured  God,  that  excused  everybody ;  that  said,  "  You 
had  better  not  do  so  and  so,"  but  still,  if  they  will,  lets  them,  and 
does  not  punish  them  for  it ;  whose  indulgence  is  like  that  of  a  foolish 
parent,  who,  seeing  a  child  going  headlong  to  destruction,  is  too 
kind  to  subject  the  child  to  that  discipline  which  is  necessary  to  ar- 
rest it  in  its  downward  course. 

And  so  there  has  sprung  up  that  swollen,  obese  and  miserable 
conception  of  a  Governor  in  heaven,  who,  in  his  administration,  made 
no  difference  between  right  and  wrong ;  no  difference  between  sin 
and  righteousness ;  no  difference  between  guilt  and  merit ;  no  differ- 
ence between  obedience  and  disobedience  to  law. 

If  there  is  anything  taught  by  nature  and  providence,  it  is  that 
God  is  a  God  of  justice  as  well  as  of  love;  that  when  love  rules  in 
heaven,  and  piits  its  soft  arras  around  men  and  lays  its  soft  hands 
on  men,  there  are  bones  in  those  arms  and  in  those  hands;  that  love 
means  truth;  that  love  means  justice;  that  love  means  government; 
that  love  tends  to  produce  the  one  and  the  other,  all  the  way  through; 
and  that  there  is  no  difference  between  them.  Love  working  by  en- 
forcements is  justice,  and  justice  working  by  kindness  is  love.  They 
are  not  to  be  separated.  That  love  which  includes  justice,  is  the  one 
identic  development  of  the  divine  disposition  by  which,  not  the 
means,  but  the  ends  are  to  be  looked  at. 


TEE  HARMONY  OF  JUSTICU  AND  LOVE.  365 

What  is  God  administering  for?  What  is  the  pui-pose  of  the 
problem  of  life  but  to  develop  men,  and  bring  out  their  powers,  and 
carry  them  forward  to  a  better  state  of  existence  ?  And  in  working 
out  this  problem,  God  punishes  those  that  are  disobedient.  He  stim- 
ulates those  who  are  prone  to  self-indulgence  or  discouragement. 
Tears  are  lessons.  Groans  are  modes  of  instruction.  SuiFerings  are 
ways  of  discipline.  But  they  are  sufferings  inflicted,  not  for  the  sake 
of  giving  pain;  not  for  the  sake  of  avenging  any  wrong  committed; 
but  for  the  sake  of  refashioning,  reforming.  And  the  love-work  of 
God  throughout  the  universe  is  the  production  of  love.  In  other 
words,  "  The  end  of  the  commandment  is  love  out  of  a  pure  heart, 
and  of  a  good  conscience,  and  of  faith  unfeigned." 

This  whole  eiTor  springs  from  the  habit  of  regarding  divine  at- 
tributes purely  in  the  light  of  human  infirmities.  It  is  true  that  man 
must  reason  from  his  OAvn  self  to  the  divine.  This  is  a  diflicult  pro- 
cess of  reasoning.  It  is  one  that  is  beset  with  liabilities  to  error. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  the  only  ladder  by  which  we  can  ascend  from  our 
own  moral  consciousness  to  the  divine  consciousness.  You  have  just 
as  much  knowledge  of  God  as  you  have  in  yourselves  the  moral  sus- 
ceptibility to  interpret  from.  If  you  have  no  feeling  of  conscience, 
you  liave  no  means  of  understanding  wliat  conscience  is  in  God.  If 
you  have  no  love,  if  you  have  no  patience,  if  you  have  no  long-suf- 
fering, then  you  have  no  elements  by  which  you  can  gain  a  true  con- 
ception of  the  divine  nature.  And  so  we  must  fashion  our  own  idea 
of  God  from  some  moral  consciousness  in  ourselves. 

But  scrupulous  care  is  required  that  we  shall  not  select  our  lower 
nature,  and  transfer  the  conception  which  comes  from  that  to  the  di- 
vine nature.  Nor  should  we  take  the  imperfections  of  our  higher 
moral  nature — those  strains  of  experience  which  we  have  by  reason 
of  our  limitation  and  our  lowness — and  raise  them  up  as  the  ideals 
and  models  after  which  to  fashion  our  conceptions  and  ideals  in  ref- 
erence to  God.  We  are  to  seize  the  luminoiis  hours  in  our  experi- 
ence which  reveal  the  higher  manhood  of  the  soul ;  and  from  these 
we  are  to  get  an  ideal  from  which  we  can  reason  toward  God.  And 
even  then  we  shall  see  Him  as  thi-ough  a  glass  darkly.  Our  best  con- 
ceptions, our  truest  ideals,  our  highest  moods — even  these  interpret 
but  very  imperfectly  the  divine  nature  to  us.  And  yet,  it  is  this,  if 
anything,  that  must  interpret  him  to  us. 

Now,  in  interpreting  God  from  ourselves,  why  should  we  disjoin 
these  moral  emotions,  as  if  there  were  not  in  us  the  hints  and 
beginnings  of  that  which  is  in  God  in  its  perfect  form  ?  As  men  are 
uncultivated,  their  faculties  work  separately  and  individually.  As 
men  are  cultivated,  their  faculties  more  and  more  work  together. 


366  THE  HARMONY  OF  JUSTICJE  AND  LOVE. 

What  v/e  mean  by  civilization  and  education  is  not  simply  the  do- 
velopment  of  force  in  each  faculty,  but  subordination  in  groups  of 
faculties,  and,  above  all,  selection  and  harmonization  between  facul- 
ties, so  that  the  mind  comes  out  of  many  different  tendencies  to  a 
certain  sort  of  moral  unity.  By  education  and  civilization  we  mean 
especially  this :  the  so  using  of  any  faculty,  or  any  set  of  faculties,  that 
all  the  rest  shall  be  in  harmony  wath  it.  Men,  when  they  are  yet  un- 
cultivated, separate  feeling  and  intellect.  Intellect  goes  one  way,  and 
feeling  another.  As  men  grow  truly  cultivated,  the  feelings  carry 
with  them  intellect,  and  the  intellect  carries  with  it  feeling  ;  and  they 
are  not  separated.  That  is  a  spurious  refinement  which  makes  men  so 
fastidious  that  they  must  have  a  power  that  will  not  let  feeling  come 
up  and  mix  with  it.  All  true  culture  and  development  carries  feel- 
ing in  reason,  and  reason  in  feeling;  for  true  culture  tends  tow^ard 
harmonization  and  unity.  When  men  are  low,  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  taste,  there  is  nothing  but  sense,  to  them.  They  want  fact.  They 
want  exactitude.  They  want  literality.  They  want  bestiality,  al- 
most. But  as  men  carry  up  their  developments,  not  simply  in  the 
realm  or  sense,  or  that  which  is  accurate,  or  that  which  is  effectual, 
but  in  the  realm  of  imagination,  of  taste,  of  the  higher  emotions,  these 
two  realms  do  not  interfere  with  each  other,  but  harmonize.  They 
come  together  easily  in  a  high  state  of  development. 

In  the  lower  forms  of  life,  personal  liberty  leaves  men  unbound. 
They  throw  off  law  and  throw  off  all  restraint.  But  in  the  higher 
forms  of  development,  men  find  that  the  Avay  to  be  perfectly  free,  is 
to  be  perfectly  faithful  to  duty.  That  is,  obligation,  obedience  to 
the  highest  conception  of  duty,  carries  the  highest  personS,l  liberty 
to  men.     Duty  and  unity  belong  to  the  higher  conditions  of  life. 

I  have  already  illustrated  that  love  in  its  lower  forms  tends  to 
act  toward  justice  or  anger  at  one  time,  and  toward  mercy  at  an- 
other time ;  but  as  men  grow  wiser  and  come  into  better  relations, 
we  see  how  it  is  that  love  carries  a  perpetual  justice,  and  justice  a 
perpetual  love.  We  see  then  the  noblest  representation  of  the  unity 
of  these  feelings  and  their  inseparableness,  not  alone  in  the  house- 
hold, not  alone  in  the  parental  relation,  but  in  the  relations  of  friend- 
ship. 

There  is  nothing  that  you  are  more  sensitive  to  than  the  excel- 
lence of  those  whom  you  love  most.  You  cannot  bear  that  those 
whom  you  love  should  not  be  pure  and  true.  You  can  tolerate  im- 
perfection in  any  others  better  than  in  those  whom  you  love.  You 
want  them  to  represent  your  highest  ideal. 

Take  the  familiar  instance  of  a  mother.  1  think  that  a  great- 
minded  woman,  who  is  all  but  a  Christian  by  nature,,  and  who  is  then 


TEE  HA BMONY  OF  JUSTICE  AND  LOYE.  o G  7 

enriched  by  grace,  and  brought  into  the  conscious  sympathy  and 
affinity  of  tlie  Lord  Jesus  Christ — I  think  that  such  a  woman,  ad- 
ministering in  tiie  household,  presents  the  best  concei)tion  of  moral 
government,  and  the  best  conception  of  mediatorial  work,  and  the 
best  conception  of  atoning  love,  which  it  is  possible  to  present  on 
earth.  Men  have  gone  to  kings  to  get  it :  I  go  to  my  queen.  Men 
go  tc  states  :  I  go  to  my  household.  Men  go  to  generic  sources  :  I 
go  to  specific.  You  shall  nowhere  find  a  pattern  so  near  to  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  the  grounds  and  I'easons  of  moral  govern- 
ment in  the  atoning  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  as  in  a  great, 
rich,  ripe,  sweet-minded  woman,  who  is  bringing  up  her  household 
of  perhaps  six,  seven,  eight,  nine  children.  And  the  illustration  is  all 
the  more  striking  where,  as  is  sometimes  the  case,  a  woman  does  this 
with  poverty  in  her  own  family,  and  jel  is  sweet-minded,  and  is  al- 
ways working,  though  never  for  herself,  and  is  never  weary,  and  is 
willing  to  be  interrupted  by  this,  that,  or  the  other  one,  and  is 
always  living  for  others,  in  others,  iinder  others,  spending  or  being 
spent  to  lift  up  those  that  are  weaker  than  she — those  that  first  drew 
nutriment  from  her  breast,  and  who  all  the  rest  of  their  days  have 
been  drawing  life  from  her  heart  of  love,  she  continually  pouring  out 
the  spirit  of  love  for  them. 

And  yet  does  she  not  bring  tears  from  them  ?  Is  there  anybody 
else  so  rigorous  against  meanness  as  she  ?  Oh  !  how  she  hates  it  in 
her  children !  But  does  she  gnash  her  teeth  at  them,  because  she 
hates  it  ?  Does  she  smite  them  ?  Yes,  sometimes  ;  and  she  ought 
to  ;  for  she  cannot  always  get  along  without  it.  If  the  infliction  of 
physical  pain  can  be  avoided,  it  is  better  to  avoid  it ;  but  there  are 
times  when  it  must  be  resorted  to.  It  is  a  matter  of  tempera- 
ment and  constitution,  whether  you  shall  bring  in  physical  as  well 
as  moral,  or  other  motives.  But  this  is  the  thought :  that  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  love  in  the  family,  pain  and  pleasure  are  instruments, 
alternatives.  And  for  the  sake  of  what  ?  for  the  sake  of  raakinc 
suffering  ?  for  the  sake  of  satisfying  a  broken  law  of  the  house- 
hold ?  for  the  sake  of  vindicating  the  dignity  and  personality  of  the 
mother?  No.  The  end  of  her  administration  is  to  work  those 
children  up  to  a  disposition  "  of  love  out  of  a  pure  heart,  and  of  a 
good  conscience,  and  of  faith  unfeigned  "  ;  and  she  administers  to 
that  end,  mingling  all  the  time  with  her  administration,  truth,  purity, 
duty,  and  integrity.  And  her  sternest  moments  of  integrity  are 
wrapped  about  with  the  atmosphere  of  love  and  goodness.  And 
you  cannot  take  the  two  elements  apart.  There  she  stands  in  the 
household,  and  is  God  to  those  children  till  they  have  growy  up ; 
and  her  example  there  is  one  of  beneficence,  and  furnishes  the  best 


368  TEE  HARMONY  OF  JUSTICE  AND  LOVE. 

conception  that  we  can  liave  upon  earth  of  a  government  which  con* 
sists  of  self-sacrifice  ;  of  living  for  others  ;  of  pouring  out  one's  life 
for  others,  and  of  administering  so  as  to  bring  them  up  from  their 
low  estate  to  a  life  of  excellence.  And  in  her  treatment  of  them,  pun- 
ishing or  rewarding  them  according  to  the  dictates  of  her  best  judg- 
ment as  to  what  will  promote  their  highest  welfare,  you  get  a  better 
ideal  of  the  government  of  God  than  in  the  whole  realm  of  human 
life  besides.  No  king,  no  schedule  of  kingly  government,  ever 
came  half  so  near  to  representing  the  divine  government  as  this 
mother's  administration  in  the  household. 

I  Now,  is  it  necessary,  even  in  reasoning  of  the  divine  nature  from 
jour  experience,  that  we  should  separate  love  and  justice,  and  make 
jtwo  Gods — one  a  God  of  mercy,  and  another  ti  God  of  justice?  or 
ithat  we  should  make  God  a  God  of  love  at  one  time,  and  a  God  of 
^justice  at  another?  that  we  should  make  him  now  a  God  of  stern- 
ness, and  then  a  God  of  mercy  ?  Not  at  all.  God  is  always  just, 
'or  he  is  never  just ;  he  is  always  merciful,  or  he  is  never  merciful. 
He  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever.  He  always  mingles 
love  and  justice  together;  and  both  of  them  are  instruments  for 
building  men  up  from  the  lowest  forms  to  a  glorious  perfected  state 
of  manhood  m  the  future. 

All  such  representations,  then,  of  the  divine  moral  government, 
as  naturally  and  necessarily  leave  the  impression  that  because  God 
is  good  he  is  careless  of  moral  distinctions  ;  all  such  representations 
as  leave  the  impression  that  God  is  good-natured,  rather  than  good; 
that  he  will  not  permit  suffering  ;  that  he  will  not  punish  the  wrong- 
doer ;  that  he  leaves  nature,  a  vast  machine,  to  turn  out  results 
without  praise  or  blameworthiness — all  such  representations  proceed 
upon  a  theory  of  benevolence  which  is  neither  Scriptural,  experi- 
mental, rational  nor  philosophical.  The  general  effect  of  such  views, 
if  left  alone,  is  to  lower  the  tone  of  conscience,  to  dimmish  the  in- 
spiration of  spiritual  life,  and  to  deteriorate,  ultimately,  the  morals 
of  the  community. 

-  On  the  other  hand,  any  representations  of  divine  justice  in  the 
moral  government  of  God  which  leave  it  before  men  as  doing  or  per- 
mitting things  which  fairly  shock  an  intelligent  benevolence,  does  so 
upon  a  false  philosophy  both  of  government  and  of  the  attributes 
of  justice. 

The  quality  of  justice  is  indispensable  to  the  highest  form  of  love. 
Love  thinks,  reasons,  discriminates,  prefers,  chooses,  condemns,  pun- 
ishes, and  yet  is  never  cruel,  but  is  always  love.  Love  is  just.  It  is 
the  nature  of  love  to  be  just,  to  be  true.  It  does  not  take  two  na- 
tures to  make  the  two  things.     It  is  the  office  of  love,  when  it  shall 


THE  EABMONY  OF  JUSTICE  AND  LOVE.  369 

have  risen  up  out  of  its  lower  condition,  and  out  of  its  training- 
ground,  to  bring  forth  fruit  of  justice  as  well  as  of  love.  That  is  the 
way  it  acts,  and  pursues  its  end. 

It  is  perfectly  fair,  then,  judging  of  the  truth  by  various  repre- 
sentations of  the  divine  government  and  of  the  divine  nature,  to  say 
that  any  view  which  shocks  that  feeling  educated  under  Christian 
teaching,  in  Christian  families,  and  by  legitimate  Christian  truth,  is 
false.  In  other  words,  that  moral  susceptibility,  that  moral  sense 
of  rectitude,  and  that  moral  sense  of  obligation  which  are  the  legit- 
imate fruits  of  Christianity  in  us,  become  a  tribunal  before  which 
we  have  a  right  to  judge,  not  God,  but  men's  representations  of 
God;  not  everlasting  truth,  but  the  systems  of  truth  which  men 
propose  for  our  adjudication  and  for  our  acceptance.  And  the  moral 
sense  of  Christendom  is  obliged  to  review,  in  every  few  centuries,  the 
systems  of  theology  which  exist,  and  to  take  out  the  naturalism  and 
heathenism  which  there  is  in  them,  and  substitute  for  them  the  truth 
as  it  is  in  Christ  Jesus. 

There  is  but  one  other  point  that  I  shall  make.  As  yet,  I  think 
no  man  can  frame  a  system  for  the  actual  history  and  the  actual 
events  of  the  world  which  unites  both  sides — divine  justice  and 
divine  love.  They  are  separable  among  men,  but  united  in  God. 
We  have  never  risen  high  enough  to  lay  an  explanatory  conception 
on  the  course  of  history.  I  do  not  despair  of  its  being  done  in  this 
world,  but  I  do  not  expect  that  it  will  be  done  in  my  day.  The 
mystery  of  history  is  an  insoluble  problem.  Take  the  highest  idea 
of  moral  government  over  the  world,  and  attempt  to  apply  it  to  the 
events  that  have  chequered  the  flow  of  human  life  in  this  world,  and 
you  are  met  at  every  step  by  questions  unanswerable.  In  Job  you 
will  find  precisely  the  same  reasonings  that  are  advanced  to-day; 
you  will  find  there  the  same  line  of  argument  which  may  be  found  in 
Byron's  works,  in  Goethe's  Faust,  and  in  the  philosophy  of  each  suc- 
ceeding intelligent  age.  You  find  as  magnificently  set  forth  in  Job 
as  in  any  subsequent  literature  of  the  world,  the  question  of  how  to 
reconcile  the  facts  in  life  with  the  conception  of  the  nature  of  a 
divine  Governor  who  discriminates  between  right  and  wrong.  That 
is  a  question  that  is  not  solved  ;  and  we  have  not  risen  high  enough 
as  yet,  to  solve  it.  Ages  may  do  it;  but  we  are  not  in  a  state  to  do 
it  now. 

And,  as  we  cannot  go  backward,  and  lay  an  explanatory  philoso- 
phy on  all  the  events  of  history,  still  less  are  we  able  to  go  forward 
with  it.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  lay  down  a 
schedule  of  what  God  must  do  and  will  do  in  the  future.  I  am  shocked 
to  see  how  little  I  know,  sometimes ;  and  oftener  to  see  how  much 


370  TUE  EABMONI  OF  JUSTICE  AND  LOVE. 

other  people  know.  I  hear  people  discussing  theology  and  showing 
a  familiarity  with  the  divine  nature  and  the  divine  government  which 
is  perfectly  wonderful.  I  hear  men  say  that  God  cannot  do  this,  and 
that  He  can  do  that,  as  though  they  had  been  in  His  counsels,  and 
found  out  everything  that  He  knows.  "Who  by  searching  can  find 
out  God  ?"  why,  a  theologian — a  theological  professor  !  Everything 
in  the  alphabet  not  only,  but  everything  that  the  alphabet  can  be 
made  to  spell  out,  he  knows.  Men  make  their  wicker-work  systems 
of  theology  the  basis  of  a  familiarity  with  divine  thought  and  divine 
action  and  divine  being,  which  is  truly  astounding.  One  would 
think  that  a  man's  soul  would  feel  itself  abashed,  as  the  revelator 
did,  before  angels,  and  much  more  before  God,  whose  immensity  of 
experience  so  far  transcends  our  highest  moods  of  experience ;  and 
yet,  men  lo.ok  up  and  say,  "  God  goes  just  so  far  in  that  direction, 
and  just  so  far  in  that ;  he  is  just  so  long,  and  just  so  broad."  They 
have  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  nature  and  the  divine  government 
all  studied  out.  They  can  tell  you  exactly  how  it  opens  and  shvits. 
It  is  like  a  Chinese  puzzle  ;  and  if  you  do  not  knoAV  how  you  cannot, 
and  if  you  do  know  you  can,  put  in  every  piece  just  right.  If  you 
believe  just  so,  you  are  "  orthodox,"  but  if  you  do  not,  you  are  a 
"  heretic."  If  you  believe  so  and  so,  you  are  a  "  Pelagian ;" 
or,  if  you  are  not  that,  you  are  a  "semi-Pelagian."  And 
what  an  awful  thing  it  is  to  be  a  "  Pelagian  "  or  a  "  semi-Pelagian  " 
all  one's  life,  and  not  know  it !  "You  are  no  better  than  an  Armin- 
ian,"  says  the  Professor.  You  do  not  know  what  that  is  ;  but  what- 
ever it  is,  you  wish  you  were  not  that.  And  you  are  afraid  of  being 
an  "  Arian,"  a  "  Socinian,"  a  "  Pelagian,"  and  pretty  much  every- 
thing else.  We  have  ever  so  many  mad-dog  names  on  points  that 
are  mystical,  or  on  points  which  human  knowledge  is  inadequate  to 
grasp.  These  blind  theories  of  government  are  the  ones  on  which 
there  has  been  more  persecution  than  on  any  others ;  and  they  are  to- 
day the  test  questions,  the  shibboleths,  that  separate  between  church 
and  church.  Is  there  on  earth  a  body  of  men  that  God  has  more 
blessed  than  He  has  the  Methodist  church  and  ministry  ?  And  why 
do  they  stand  separated  from  the  great  Presbyterian  body  ?  The 
"  Five  Points  of  Calvinism,"  "  Foreordination,"  the  "  Decrees,"  the 
«'  Decree  of  Reprobation  "  and  the  "  Decree  of  Election,"  an  "  Effica- 
cious Calling,"  so  that  a  man  shall  not  fall  from  grace,  and  a  score  of 
other  doctrines  (I  have  forgotten  them ;  my  education  is  incomplete 
in  this  regard) — what  are  they  but  so  many  metaphysical  views  of  the 
divine  government,  and  the  divine  character,  which  separate  these 
two  great  bodies  of  Christians  ?  And  so  the  Arminian  stands  firing 
at  the  Calvinist,  and  the  Calvinist  stands  firing  back  at  the  Armin- 


TEB  HABMONY  OF  JUSTICE  AND  LOVB.  371 

ian.  They  are  at  agreement  in  respect  to  the  great  essentials  of 
religion,  and  yet  these  non-essentials  are  a  wall  of  separation  between 
tliem — though,  thank  God,  the  wall  is  getting  lower  and  lower,  and 
the  spirit  of  love  is  growing  stronger  and  stronger. 

Only  see  how  those  that  are  alike  in  theologies,  and  in  church 
polities  and  sympathies — the  great  Baptist  brotherhood  and  the 
Pedo-Baptists — are  separated  by  their  difference  of  belief  on  one 
or  two  minor  points  of  doctrine  ?  One  says,  "  You  may  baptize 
children."  The  other  says,  "You  may  not."  One  says,  "  You  must 
put  them  all  under."  The  other  says,  "  It  is  only  necessary  to 
sprinkle  them."  That  is  all  that  separates  them.  There  is  not  a 
turnpike  so  hard,  there  is  not  a  way  so  broad,  that  these  brethren  can 
travel  on  it  together  with  this  little  bit  of  difference  between  them. 
They  hold  the  same  general  doctrines,  and  employ  the  same  sym- 
bols ;  but  this  slight  variation  in  the  mode  of  administermg  a  rite 
keeps  them  apart. 

And  so  it  is  all  the  way  through  Christendom.  You  shall  find 
churches  split  up,  here  on  doctrine,  there  on  polity  ;  here  on  organ- 
ization, there  on  robes  ;■  here  on  days.  There  are  the  "  Seventh-day 
Baptists,"  and  there  are  the  "  Sixth-day  Baptists" — no,  not  Sixth-day 
Baptists — yes  ;  at  any  rate  there  are  those  that  say  you  must  keep 
Saturday,  and  there  are  others  that  say  you  must  keep  Sunday.  And 
if  I  laugh  at  them,  and  say  "  What  difference  does  it  make,"  they 
say,  "  None,  so  far  as  the  day  is  concerned ;  But  is  not  obedience 
something  ?  That  is  the  question."  "  Eh  !"  says  the  Seventh-day 
Baptists,  "  Did  not  God  command  us  to  observe  the  seventh  day  ? 
and  is  disobedience  nothing  ?"  And  so  they  entrench  themselves 
behind  this  technicality  of  obedience  or  disobedience. 

If  I  go  to  those  who  believe  in  immersion,  and  say,  "  Do  you 
really  think  that  it  makes  any  difference,  when  one  is  baptized, 
whether  he  goes  under  the  water,  or  is  sprinkled  ?"  they  say  "  It  makes 
no  difference  so  far  as  the  mere  effect  on  the  individual  is  concerned; 
but  if  Christ  said,  '  Go  under  the  water,'  the  obedience  or  disobe- 
dience makes  a  great  deal  of  difference."  Well,  I  cannot  get  away 
from  that.     They  have  got  me  there. 

If  I  go  to  an  Episcopalian,  and  say,  "  Now,  do  you  think  it 
makes  any  diffei'ence  about  my  salvation  whether  I  am  in  the  '  true 
church'  or  not  ?  Do  you  not  suppose  that  I  can  get  to  Heaven  out 
of  my  own  church  as  well  as  out  of  yours  ?"  he  says,  "  Well,  the  mere 
church  is  nothing ,  but  if  Christ  said  that  this  was  the  true  church, 
the  obedience  is  something." 

And  so  they  all  have  their  little  catch-word  obedience,  as  if  that 
were  the  marrow  of  Christianity ;  as  if  God  thought  of  these  little 


372  THE  HARMONY  OF  JUSTICE  AND  LOVE. 

Bcrews,  and  nail-heads,  and  tacks  !  They,  may  have  some  value  in 
the  machinery  ;  but  they  are  only  parts,  and  minor  parts  of  it. 
"  The  end  of  the  commandment,"  says  the  apostle,  the  whole  thing 
which  the  commandment  aims  at  and  is  designed  to  produce,  "  is 
charity  out  of  a  pure  heart,  and  of  a  good  conscience,  and  of  faith 
unfeigned." 

Now  go  home  and  quarrel  over  your  doxies.  Go  home  and 
quarrel  over  your  churches.  But  remember  that  he  who  loves  God, 
and  is  accepted  of  him,  he  whose  love  is  outpouring  an  intelligent 
beneficence  from  a  pure  heart,  from  a  sound  conscience,  and  from  a 
true,  unfeigned  faith  in  the  future,  is  the  sweet  product,  the  golden 
fruit  of  the  tree  of  life.  And  pray,  whatever  may  become  of 
baptisms,  and  days,  and  ordinances,  and  rituals,  which  are  per- 
missible, but  not  authoritative — pray  that  the  end  which  the  com- 
mandment seeks  may  be  wrought  out  in  you. 


THE  IIAF.MONY  OF  JUSTICJ3  A17L  LOV.E. 


TRAYER    BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Father,  toach  us  to  pray.  As  thy  disciples  gathered  about  thee, 
blessed  Saviour,  and  asked  knowledge  of  the  way  of  thought  and  faith  and 
love,  so  do  we.  W  e  do  not  need  to  ask  thee  for  daily  bread,  as  though  we 
were  hungry ;  for  our  wants  are  abundantly  supplied.  It  is  rather  for  us  to 
give  thanks  than  to  solicit.  Nor  do  we  come  to  thee  to  ask  thy  help  by 
which  we  shall  be  able  to  live  in  all  this  outward  estate.  Already  thou  hast 
so  inspired  us,  and  hast  surrounded  us  by  so  many  influences,  that  we  are 
guided  and  taught  and  sustained.  But  how  shall  we  come  to  thee  as  chil- 
dren coma  ?  How  shall  we  understand  thee  when  only  out  of  oui'selves  can 
we  fmd  and  f  asliion  those  elements  of  tJiought  by  which  to  discern  tnee  ?  Oh ! 
how  poor  are  we  in  goodness  !  and  how  is  love  itself  but  a  struggling  taper 
in  us!  Often  plunged  in  seltishness;  often  worldly  and  calculating;  seldom 
shining  far  above  the  horizon,  and  beyond  the  reach  of  mist  and  vapor; 
poor  as  the  stars,  how  shall  we  understand  thy  nature  of  love  and  infinite 
beneficenoe  that  wearies  not;  that  never  forsakes  truth;  that  never  forsakes 
justice;  that  never  forsakes  goodress;  that  bears  in  itself  eternal  truth  and 
justice  and  goodness,  and  yet  forever  loves,  beneficent  on  every  side,  in  act, 
in  thought,  in  plan,  in  administration,  in  attribute,  and  in  fruit  and 
outcome;  that  in  all  things  is  full  of  the  desire  to  create  happingss  in  men, 
and  to  continue  them  in  enjoyment?  How  shall  we  form  anything  in  our- 
selves that  shall  raise  us  to  the  conception  of  the  goodness  of  thy  nature  ? 
What  do  we  know  of  long-suffering,  who  are  tired  in  a  day  ?  If  thou  that 
sittest  on  the  circle  of  the  earth  art  not  tired ;  if  thou  that  art  ever  on  the 
battle-fleld  of  life  art  unwearied ;  if  thou  art  the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  forever,  what  is  there  in  us  that  can  interpret  thee  ?  Who,  by  search- 
ing, can  find  out  God  ?  And  if  we  draw  near  to  thee  to  pray ;  if  we  would 
commune  with  thee,  exchanging  our  thoughts  for  thine,  sijeaking  with  thee 
as  children  may  speak  with  a  parent,  then  we  need  to  say  to  thee.  Lord, 
teach  us  how  to  pray.  Teach  us  better  things  in  life.  Teach  us  nobler  feel- 
ings. Teach  us  those  aspirations  that  shall  break  upward  toward  thee. 
Teach  us  that  renunciation  that  shall  cure  pride,  and  selfishness,  and  envy, 
and  jealousy,  and  every  hateful  and  malign  passion.  Teach  us  to  live  above 
the  power  of  the  senses,  and  in  the  realm  and  under  the  dominion  of  faith, 
more  and  mora,  from  day  to  day,  so  that  every  day  we  may  be  better  fitted 
for  communion  with  thee. 

And  now.  Lord,  we  desire  to  thank  thee,  this  morning,  for  the  help  of  days 
past.  For  our  sky  is  not  altogether  clouded.  Bright  is  it  in  places,  though 
there  are  storms  in  the  heavens  which  our  passions  bring.  We  discern 
thee  afar  off,  though  we  see  but  thy  retreating  glory.  Thy  face  we  cannot 
see  while  we  are  in  the  flesh.  We  rejoice  in  our  past  experience,  and  in  the 
hope  which  it  begets  in  us  for  the  future.  And  we  desire  to  give  ourselves 
to  the  ministration  of  thy  good  Spirit,  opening  our  hearts  wide,  and  not 
grieving  thee  by  our  coldness  or  want  of  the  disposition  to  welcome  thee. 
Enter,  O  Spirit  of  light  and  comfort  and  purity !  and  cleanse  our  hearts. 
Illumine  them,  and  fill  them  with  the  divine  life.  And  we  pray  that  we  may 
walk  with  a  holy  hope  and  faith  of  that  life  which  is  not  far  beyond  us,  and 
to  which  we  aspire.  We  shall  not  carry  thither  all  our  joys.  Many  of  them 
are  earthly  joys  which  dry  up  upon  the  stalk,  and  which  the  wind  rattles ; 
and  these  shall  be  left  behind.  We  shall  not  always  be  seeking  those  things 
which  perish  in  the  using.  We  shall  not  say  to  the  eye.  Thou  arl  my  God; 
nor  to  the  ear.  Thou  art  my  king.  We  shall  yet  live  and  be  as  the  sons  of 
God,  and  dwell  in  an  immortality  of  nobler  pleasures,  and  brighter  joys, 


374  TEB  EABMONY  OF  JUSTICE  AND  LOVE. 

and  purer  aspirations,  forever  fulfilling  themselves.    We  shall  be  as  the 
children  of  the  living  God. 

Grant  that  that  life  beyond  may  never  quite  fade  out,  and  that  there  may 
come  more  frequent  hours  when  it  shall  shine  out  like  the  very  gate  of 
heaven.  Speak  to  us,  O  thou  blessed  God !  by  thy  inaudible  voice,  that  the 
soul  only  knows.  Grant  us  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  that  we  are  sons  of 
God.  And  if  we  do  not  know  what  that  means,  may  it  rise  up  in  us  as  mu- 
sic heard  afar  off,  whose  tones  cannot  be  distinguished.  And  may  it  center 
in  us.  And  so  may  we  hear  the  sounds  and  feel  the  influences  from  the 
heavenly  land.  And  may  we  long,  if  it  be  the  will  of  God,  to  lay  down  our 
burden,  and  our  duty,  and  our  life,  that  we  may  find  our  nobler  life  and  our 
better  joys  with  thee. 

Accept  the  thanks  of  all  those  who  come  up  this  morning  to  thank  thee 
that  thou  hast  heard  their  prayers ;  of  those  that  thank  thee  for  strength 
given  them  to  accomplish  the  purposes  about  which  they  were  sent  in  thy 
providence ;  of  those  that  thank  thee  for  great  escapes  from  circumstances 
of  fear ;  of  those  that  thank  thee  for  restored  health ;  of  those  that  thank 
thee  that  in  the  midst  of  deep  bereavements  and  afflictions  and  distress,  thou 
hast  held  their  head  up  above  the  wave.  Accept  the  thanksgiving  of  those 
that  would  thank  thee  if  they  dared,  but  that  think  they  must  not.  Break 
through  all  such  fears,  and  show  thyself  not  only  to  those  that  are  near, 
but  to  those  that  are  afar  off  all  the  more.  Be  with  those  who  think  them- 
selves to  be  thy  children,  and  give  thanks  to-day.  And  those  that  are  wan- 
dering from  the  fold,  away  from  their  Father's  house — grant  that  they  may 
have  a  better  mood  to-day,  and  lift  them  up  to  a  plane  where  they  shall 
have  some  thoughts  of  thanksgiving  to  their  God. 

And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  that  are  in  trouble.  And 
if  they  have  come  up  here  to  have  their  troubles  lightened,  give  them  not 
release  unless  it  be  best  for  them ;  but  say  to  them  (and  may  they  feel  thine 
arm  about  them),  "  My  grace  shall  be  sufficient  for  thee."  And  we  pray  that 
there  may  be  this  release,  that  we  shall  be  able  to  bear  trouble  by  the  grace 
of  God,  and  to  become  stronger  by  it,  and  clearer  in  the  faith  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  by  darkness  and  by  light. 

And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  be  near  to  those  that  cannot 
come  unto  us,  nor  mingle  their  voices  here ;  who  are  shut  up,  it  may  be,  by 
sickness.  Be  gracious  to  them,  and  send  thine  angels  to  minister  sweet 
thoughts  to  them  of  that  rest  which  remaineth  for  the  people  of  God.  May 
there  open  up  before  them  light  from  the  other  world,  and  may  all  their 
gloom  and  sadness  be  cheered  away  by  the  communications  of  thy  dear 
Spirit. 

And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  be  near  to  those  that  watch  with 
the  sick ;  to  those  that  carry  great  burdens ;  to  those  who,  in  beholding  the 
play  of  life,  recall  their  own  lives,  and  all  the  multitude  of  the  mercies  of 
it.    Shed  the  influence  of  thy  Spirit  upon  them,  we  beseech  of  thee. 

And  we  pray  for  those  who  are  disconsolate,  and  who  sit  in  darkness  of 
mind.  May  a  great  light  arise  upon  them.  Go  to  them,  thou  comforting 
Saviour. 

And  if  there  be  those  who  mourn  over  their  sins  to-day ;  if  there  be 
those  who  are  heart-broken  in  view  of  their  own  wickedness ;  if  there  be 
those  whose  consciences  bear  witness  against  them,  and  all  of  whose  better 
nature  stands  up  and  accuses  them,  stand  thou,  dear  Saviour,  on  their  side. 
Justify  them,  speak  peace  to  them,  though  they  be  sinful.  And  grant  that 
tney  may  hear  thy  voice  saying  to  them,  Love  and  justice  are  united.  Thy 
sins  are  forgiven  thee.    Rise,  go,  and  sin  no  more. 

We  beseech  of  thee,  O  Lord  our  God !  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to 
rest  upon  all  according  to  their  own  circumstances— in  the  unmentionable 


TEE  HARMONY  OF  JUSTICE  AND  LOVE,  375 

oircumstances  of  their  life;  in  their  hidden  thoughts,  or  hidden  joys,  or 
hidden  griefs ;  in  those  troubles  that  they  cannot  themselves  understand, 
or  that,  if  they  could  understand  them,  they  could  not  mention. 

Be  with  those  that  are  far  from  us  to-day  on  errands  of  thy  providence, 
wherever  the>  are.  May  thy  Spii-it  go  with  them.  May  they  find  a  home, 
may  they  enjoy  the  Sabbath,  and  may  they  find  a  sanctuary  of  worship, 
though  it  be  in  the  wilderness. 

Be  with  those  who  have  gone  down  upon  the  great  deep.  Especially  be 
with  thy  servant,  our  brother,*  who  for  so  many  years  has  ministered  near 
unto  us,  and  here  frequently.  Be  with  him  and  with  his,  and  keep  him  yet 
in  the  hollow  of  thy  hand.  And  during  the  months  of  his  separation  from 
his  people,  and  in  distant  lands.  Lord,  bless  him,  in  body  and  in  souL  And 
spare  him  to  come  back  again,  and  to  shine  brighter,  and  be  stronger  and 
more  fruitful  in  the  work  of  the  Master  than  ever  he  has  been  before.  And 
keep  the  people  of  his  charge,  and  all  their  households.  May  death  spare 
them,  and  light  abound  with  them.  And  may  the  sanctuary  still  be  strong, 
and  thy  servants  labor  together  for  the  things  that  are  lacking  now  in  their 
midst. 

And  so  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  the  churches  near  unto 
us.  May  we  think  more  and  more  of  them,  and  not  altogether  of  ourselves. 
May  we  seek  to  take  hold  of  hands  with  all  that  love  the  Lord  Jesus  ChriBt 
in  sincerity.  And  carry  forward  thy  great  work  in  this  city  and  through- 
out all  our  cities,  and  throughout  this  whole  land. 

We  pray  for  schools  and  colleges  and  seminaries  of  learning.    • 

We  pray  for  all  that  are  in  authority  in  this  nation.  We  pray  that  thou 
wilt  give  us  magistrates  thatshall  fear  God.  May  our  laws  become  purer  5 
and  may  the  administration  of  them  become  more  and  more  righteous.  We 
beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  remembsr  all  governors  and  counsellors  in 
this  Union.  Be  pleased  to  remember  the  President  of  these  United  States, 
and  his  cabinet  in  counsel  with  him.  Give  them  wisdom,  and  give  them  the 
Spirit  of  the  living  God,  that  they  may  do  their  duty  as  in  the  fear  of  the 
Lord. 

Bless  all  that  are  in  authority  throughout  the  world.  May  they  rule  dili- 
gently, and  in  mercy,  and  without  selfishness,  and  without  oppression. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  wars  may  speedily  come  to  an  end.  May  men 
learn  a  better  way.  May  they  learn  to  lift  up  the  light  of  knowledge  upon 
the  whole  earth.  May  darkness  and  superstition  flee  away,  and  the  bright 
day  of  knowledge  and  of  piety  come,  and  all  the  earth  see  thy  salvation. 

Which  mercies  we  ask  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.    Amen. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Heavenly  Father,  we  beseech  of  thes  that  thou  wilt  set  thy  seal  to 
the  truth  spoken.  Grant  that  we  may  rise  up  into  the  higher,  the  diviner 
love.  May  we  not  give  up  things  that  are  right,  and  things  that  are  just. 
May  we  know  the  natural  language  of  true  love.  May  we  know  that  we 
cannot  experience  that  love  if  we  are  heedless  and  conscienceless  and  faith- 
less. And  grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  we  may  more  and  more  experience  the 
sympathy  of  divine  patience  and  benevolence,  and  bring  forth  richly  such 
fruits  that  men,  seeing  our  good  works,  shall  glorify  our  Father  which  is 
in  heaven.  And  help  us  to  sing  once  more.  Go  home  with  us,  and  makeour 
homes  sweet  and  redolent  as  heaven.    We  ask  it  for  Christ's  sake.    Amen, 

*  Kev.  Dr.  Storrs. 


xxin. 

Love,  the  Common  Law  of  the 
Universe. 


INVOCATION. 

Thou,  O  God  of  power  and  of  might,  art  lifted  above  all  turmoil.  Thou 
dwellest  in  peace,  and  breathest  from  thine  own  heart  peace  to  all  those  that 
know  thee.  Grant  unto  us,  to-day,  from  the  innermost  circle  of  thy  life, 
divine  inspiration.  Above  care,  above  trouble,  above  all  anxiety,  above 
fear  and  distress  and  doubt,  lift  us  to-day,  into  the  clear  shining  of  faith 
and  love.  Bless  to  us  thy  Word.  Bless  to  us  the  fellowship  of  song.  Bless 
to  us  the  oflSces  of  instruction,  and  all  the  duty  and  the  joy  of  the  day, 
wherever  we  are.    We  ask  it  for  Christ's  sake.    Amen. 

23 


LOVE, 

THE  COMMOI  LA¥OP  THE  UNIVERSE. 


"  No-w  the  end  of  the  commandment  is  charity  out  of  a  pure  heart,  and 
of  a  good  conscience,  and  of  faith  unfeigned."—!  Tim.  i.,  5. 


I  have  already  spoken  from  this  passage,  defining  what  "the  end 
of  the  commandment  "  means — namely,  the  results  at  which  it  aims  ; 
the  fruits  which  it  seeks  to  produce ;  the  reason  which  it  has  for 
being,  for  exercising  authority,  and  for  its  activity  in  the  world. 

It  aims  to  secure  the  great,  the  universal  spirit  of  benevolence, 
charity,  love — by  whichever  term  your  philosophy  styles  it.  But 
that  it  may  not  be  supposed  that  charity,  as  here  employed,  is  a  mere 
mild  sentiment,  a  mere  well-wishing,  kind,  but  weak,  or  at  least 
feeble,  the  apostJe  gives  his  conception  of  Christian  charity.  It  is  a 
feeling  that  arises,  not  from  any  casual  impulse  of  nature.  No  ex- 
jierience  can  rise  to  the  height  that  justifies  you  in  calling  it  charity 
or  love,  which  springs  merely  from  interest,  or  momentary  gener- 
osity. It  is  that  charity  or  that  state  of  love  which  can  spring,  and 
does  spring,  only  from  a  pure  heart — or,  in  other  words,  a  heart 
which  has  been  divinely  developed ;  which  has  been  opened  up  int'o 
a  state  of  symmetry  and  purity.  That  is  a  heart  in  which  the 
moral  and  spiritual  elements  predominate  over  all  casual  impulses, 
and  over  all  the  lower  nature  of  man.  That  is,  out  of  the  very 
highest  moral  and  spiritual  elements  of  man's  being  must  this  love 
spring  which  it  is  the  nature  of  the  law  to  produce.  Nor  ought  we 
to  think  that  this  love,  or  good-will,  which  springs  from  men's 
noblest  faculties,  always  works  by  the  conferring  of  happiness,  or 
that  it  seeks  only  present  good.  It  seeks  men's  enjoyment  by  men's 
perfection.  Therefore  it  is  always  an  element  that  goes  with  tho, 
spirit  of  justice,  equity,  righteousness.  Love  out  of  a  pure  heart — 
out  of  the  noblest  instincts  of  nature,  love  that  goes  with  a  sound 
conscience — that  is,  with  that  whole  mood  of  our  moral  being 
which  discriminates  between  right  and  wrong,  good  and  bad,  high 

SmTDAY  MonNiNQ,  Feb.  12, 1871.  Lesson  :  Psalms  CLXVni.  Hymns  (Plymouth  Col- 

lection) :  Nos.  10,  507,  648. 


378  LOrU,  THE  COMMON 

and  low  in  character — this  is  the  love  which  always  carries  with 
it  moral  purity,  and  which  carries  with  it,  also,  discriminating  equity. 

But  then,  it  might  still  be  thought  that  it  was  a  sentiment  which 
was  exerted  upon  men  for  the  sake  of  their  lower  life,  for  their  pres- 
ent convenience ;  and  therefore  it  is  added,  "  By  faith  unfeigned." 

Now,  **  Faith  is  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen."  Faith  is  the 
Boul's  realization  of  those  truths  which  are  invisible.  In  other 
words,  the  action  of  that  part  of  our  mind  is  supersensuous.  It  does 
not  work  by  the  senses.  It  is  higher  than  the  scientific  side  of  the 
mind,  therefore,  if  by  science  you  mean  the  art  of  knowledge  that 
comes  through  the  senses. 

So,  then,  we  conclude  that  benevolence,  or  the  love  which  Chris- 
tianity develops  and  makes  the  supreme  end  of  its  existence,  is  not 
a  monochord ;  that  it  is  a  composite  thing ;  that  it  carries  with  it 
the  great  sterling  elements  of  truth,  of  righteousness,  of  justice; 
that  it  carries  with  it,  not  the  present  existence  alone,  but  the  life 
that  is  to  come — the  great  realm  of  faith.  It  is  the  largest  and  su- 
premest  action  of  the  mind  which  is  conceivable. 

Certain  inferences  were  made  during  our  former  consideration 
of  this  passage  which  we  shall  not  recapitulate.  Certain  questions 
were  argued  which  it  is  not  necessary  now  to  argue  again.  There 
is  further  matter  to  be  derived  from  the  words  of  the  Apostle. 
And  I  remark : 

1.  The  commandment  given  to  men  may  be  assumed  to  be,  as  it 
is  taught  in  the  word  of  God  to  be,  a  commandment  which  repre- 
sents God's  life  and  disposition.  Not  only  is  it  a  transcript  of  the 
divine  will,  but  it  is  also  a  transcript,  to  a  certain  extent,  of  the  di- 
vine life.  That  there  are  many  things  that  man  is  commanded  to 
do,  either  by  words  addressed  directly  to  him,  or  by  the  organized 
laws  of  nature,  which  do  not  belong  to  the  divine  Being,  is  not  to  be 
denied ;  but  of  the  fact  that  the  great  ends  of  human  existence  ara 
the  same  as  those  ends  which  God  himself  pursues,  we  are  not  left 
in  doubt.  And  when  that,  on  which  all  the  law  and  the  prophets 
hang,  w^hen  the  law  of  the  New  Testament — the  new  command- 
ment— is  declared  to  be  love,  and  love  in  that  large  way  in  which  it 
is  expounded  by  the  apostle,  it  is  fair  to  say  that  this  is  the  universal 
law — a  law  not  for  man  alone,  relative  to  his  lower  condition, 
but  for  all  beings  in  the  universe,  in  their  various  conditions,  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest.  It  is  because  man  is  a  member  of  the 
universe,  and  because  God  is  training  the  whole  universe  to  final 
unity,  and  because  all  his  intelligent  creatures  are  to  come  into  unity 
with  each  other  by  coming  into  likeness  and  unity  with  him,  that 
this  great  law  of  love  is  instituted.     And  this  law  is  the  law  of 


LAW  OF  THE  UNIVEESE.  379 

heaven  as  really  as  it  is  the  law  of  earth ;  and  of  God  as  really 
as  of  any  of  his  children.  It  is  a  law  which  includes  all  beings 
alike — the  highest  and  the  lowest ;  the  least  developed  and  the  most 
nearly  perfected. 

Always,  then,  and  everywhere,  now,  and  hereafter,  we  are  under 
a  law  which  is  turning  us  towards  this  one  great  element  that  the 
apostle  declares  to  be  the  end  and  object  of  the  world's  existence — 
the  production  in  us  of  this  superlative  and  overruling  feeling  of  true 
benevolence:  not  an  indifference  to  goodness;  not  an  indifference  to 
truth  ;  not  an  indifference  to  right  and  wrong.  It  is  a  benevolence 
which  includes  in  it  all  these  things  ;  which  makes  them  a  part  of 
itself ;  which  wraps  them  up,  and  strengthens  them,  and  gives  them 
vigor. 

2.  The  genius  of  creation  and  the  genius  of  the  universe  may 
therefore  be  inferred,  properly,  to  be  benevolence.  This  does  not 
exclude  the  use  of  stern  or  of  forceful  elements,  by  any  means ;  but 
it  does  determine  the  purpose  for  which  they  are  used ;  and  it  does 
determine  the  average  direction  which  it  may  be  supposed  is  taken  by 
an  economy  in  which  all  things  are  used  under  the  supervision  and 
inspiration  of  a  central  and  divine  benevolence.  Which  way  time 
is  traveling,  which  way  the  universe  is  traveling,  and  under  what 
power  of  inspiration,  is  a  matter  of  profound  importance.  Nature 
has  the  power  of  teaching  much.  It  has  taught  but  little.  It  if> 
susceptible  of  teaching  far  more  than  men  have  ever  yet  found  out 
by  it.  Men  have  found  in  nature,  comparatively  speaking,  but 
little  in  respect  to  God ;  and  that  little  has  been,  if  I  may  so  say, 
on  the  side  of  the  natural  or  physical  attributes  of  God.  We  have 
found  out  from  nature  how  God  treats  matter ;  we  have  found  out 
from  nature  how  he  treats  the  lower  forms  of  animated  existence ; 
we  have  found  out  from  nature  how  he  ti-eats  the  lower  forms  of 
humanity:  but  hitherto  nature  has  been  studied  by  men  who  were 
undeveloped  themselves,  and  only  parts  of  what  it  is  capable  ot 
teaching  has  been  found  out.  The  higher  reaches  of  knowledge 
nature  has  not  disclosed  as  it  has  the  power  of  disclosing  them. 
Even  the  apostle,  reasoning  in  Romans,  declares  that  men  might 
have  found  out  God's  "  Eternal  power  and  God-head "  "  by  the 
things  that  are  made'';  but  the  apostle  does  not  say  that  we  can  learn 
God's  benevolence  from  nature.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  terms  and 
arguments  of  divine  benevolence  can  be  sustained  by  that  argu- 
ment. Nature  is  full  of  apparent  contradictions.  Force,  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world,  has  been  stronger  than  right.  Cruelty  has  had 
more  scope  than  kindness  among  men.  There  is  that  mystery  of  or- 
ganization by  which,  from  the  lower  to  the  higher,  each  thing  is  more  or 


380  LOrU,  TEH  COMMOJi 

less  made  to  depend  iipon  the  destruction  of  something  beneath  it.  We 
see  on  every  hand  the  working  of  that  law  by  which  being  feeds  on 
being,  clear  up  to  man.  And  there  it  is  only  reversed  when  the 
Gospel  comes  in,  teaching  us  rather  to  suffer  for  another  than  to 
make  another  suffer  for  our  good.  At  that  point  is  introduced  the 
law  of  benevolence.  But  looking  through  nature  comprehensively, 
in  its  lower  ranges,  it  would  be  difficult  to  discern  the  evidence  of 
a  law  of  benevolence  administered  by  a  divine  providence.  In  the 
material  world,  there  is  much  that  is  beautiful,  and  there  is  much 
that  is  fit,  and.  there  is  much  that  can  be  made  to  serve  benevolent 
uses ;  but  the  question  whether  the  world  itself,  in  its  construction, 
indicates  a  benevolent  Artificer,  will  be  settled  very  much  according 
to  the  circumstances  and  education  of  the  person  that  reasons.  If  he 
is  himself  evenly  balanced  in  constitution ;  if  he  has  been  brought 
up  charmingly ;  if  he  has  been  very  happy  :  if  those  around  about 
him  have  been  very  happy  ;  and  if  he  has  looked  upon  every  thing 
from  the  churchly  point  of  view,  and  seen  every  thing  under  the 
most  favorable  circumstances,  he  will  be  likely  to  think  that  nature 
says  that  God  is  a  God  of  love.  Nature  evidently  makes  him  wise 
and  powerful ;  but  when  you  look  at  the  outlying  race  ;  when  you 
look,  not  at  the  few  that  are  fortunately  circumstanced,  not  at  the 
few  that  are  housed  and  husbanded  in  the  family,  but  at  the  masses 
of  mankind ;  when  you  look  at  the  vast  volume  of  animal  life,  and 
attempt  to  find  in  their  history  evidence  of  the  divine  benevolence, 
you  fail.  To  me  it  is  impossible  to  see  in  the  lower  history  of  the 
universe  proof  that  God  is  benevolent.  That  part  of  nature  does 
not  determine  it. 

But  then,  we  find  this :  that  the  lowest  part  of  creation,  inor- 
ganic elements,  and  the  lowest  forms  of  organic  material  existence, 
are  governed  by  absolute  force.  Rising  higher,  we  find,  in  the  low- 
est forms  of  human  existence,  that  fear  and  intense  terror  begin  to 
be  introduced  as  a  motive-force.  Rising  still  higher,  we  find  that  as 
the  lower  forms  of  social  life  come  into  the  sphere  of  voluntariness, 
motives  grow  milder.  That  is,  men  are  susceptible  to  higher  influ- 
ences, and  they  have  new  points  of  susceptibility  developed  in  them,  as 
they  rise  in  the  scale  of  being.  And  as  new  ranges  of  faculties  como 
in,  you  will  find  coming  in  with  them  higher  principles  of  govern- 
ment, that  tend  to  control  men  by  the  higher  and  better  elements, 
and  not  by  the  lower  ones ;  until,  when  you  come  to  the  higher  forms 
of  human  life  by  being  educated  and  developed,  then  you  will  find 
that  the  governing  force  is  implied,  rather  than  used.  That  is  the 
undertone,  the  sub-base.  It  may  be  that  the  melody  runs  far  above 
it  in  the  direction  of  piety  and  moral  life. 


LA  W  OF  THE  UNIVERSE,  08 1 

In  other  v/ox'ds,  you  will  find  that  there  is  an  ascending  scale,  and 
that  the  divine  government  which  is  indicated  in  nature  is  this: 
when  things  are  low  they  are  governed  by  forces  which  are  apprO' 
priate  to  them;  and  from  the  lowest  point  all  the  way  up,  in 
every  stage  of  existence,  the  governing  motives  are  exactly  adapted 
to  the  condition  of  the  things  governed,  and  all  that  is  low  is 
governed  by  force,  and  force  that  has  in  it  coercion,  yea,  bruising 
severity  simply  because  it  is  the  only  thing  that  is  adapted  to  the 
lower  stage  of  development ;  because  it  is  the  only  influence  that  can 
at  that  point  be  brought  to  bear  upon  existing  things. 

Taking  in  the  whole  of  nature,  then,  there  is  an  analogy  which 
points  toward  a  central  benevolence,  in  this  :  that  while  at  the  lowest 
state  of  existence  we  see  nothing  but  fate,  nothing  but  force,  there  is 
amelioration  from  that  point,  in  an  ascending  scale.  It  goes  higher 
and  higher,  from  force  to  lenity,  and  from  lenity  to  mercy  and  love. 
And  the  analogy  points  still  farther.  It  points  to  a  realm  beyond 
this  life,  where  all  government  is  benevolence,  and  where,  having 
emerged  from  lower  and  disciplinary  conditions,  the  race  and  uni- 
versal existence  will  be  governed  supremely,  not  any  longer  by  the 
law  of  force  (for  their  state  shall  have  been  ameliorated)  ;  not  any 
longer  by  the  motives  of  fear  and  terror  (for  they  shall  have  escaped 
from  the  bondage  of  these  things)  ;  not  any  longer  by  considera- 
tions of  interest  (for  they  shall  have  risen  higher  than  these) ;  but  by 
the  principle  of  love.  At  last  there  are  hints  and'indications  of  na- 
ture that  the  race  is  governed  by  disciplinary  and  recuperative 
forces. 

But,  in  order  to  this  conclusion,  the  Christian  idea  of  pain  and  suf- 
fering must  supplant  the  old  Roman,  the  Tuscan,  that  is,  the  heathen, 
idea.  Our  notions  of  justice,  to  an  extent  that  is  hardly  dreamed  of 
by  ourselves,  have  been  vitiated  by  the  infection  of  heathenism. 
There  existed  nations  that  loved  the  infliction  of  pain,  as  the  old  Ro- 
mans did.  And  the  Spanish  bull-fights  to-day  are  a  coarse  exhibition 
of  that  which  pervaded  ancient  Roman  jurisprudence  and  afterwards 
the  Romish  Church,  and  which  we  did  not  shred  ofi'at  the  Reformation. 
For  many  things  then  stuck  to  us  which  we  might  well  have  got  rid 
of  This  most  repulsive  idea  of  pain  and  suflering  was  derived  from 
the  Tuscans,  who  are  said  to  have  had,  as  shown  in  their  art  and 
literature,  the  most  horrible  conception  of  fate  and  of  the  future 
existence  of  all  nations  that  ever  lived  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  And 
this  conception  of  the  infliction  of  basilar,  fundamental  pain  and  cru- 
elty, as  the  right  of  the  gods,  has  been  handed  down  from  age  to 
age ;  and  men  have  framed  into  their  theology  the  idea  that,  for 
reasons  of  his  own  glory,  God  foreordained,  from  all  eternity,  per* 


382  LOVIJ,  THE  COMMON 

tions  of  the  human  race  to  be  vessels  of  wrath,  to  be  cursed  and 
made  miserable  forever  and  forever.  And  we  find  that  infernal, 
heathen  conception  of  God  coming  on  down  to  us  through  the  va- 
rious modifications  and  channels  of  theology.  So  that  yet,  in  the 
minds  of  many  men,  this  pain  and  this  suiFering  are  a  part  of  the 
divine  sovereignty  and  the  divine  right,  indicating  in  God  a  love  of 
pain  and  sufiering  as  such. 

Now,  you  cannot,  in  calling  a  being  by  another  name,  make  him 
enjoy  suffering  without  making  him  malignant ;  and  any  being  that 
loves  suffering  for  its  own  sake,  any  being  on  whose  heart  the  sight 
of  suffering  produces  a  pleasurable  response,  is  infernal.  And  there 
has  been  many  and  many  a  man  who  said  his  prayers  to  the  devil 
thinking  that  he  sat  on  the  throne  of  Jehovah. 

What  is  the  Christian  idea  of  pain  and  suffering  ?  That  it  is  a 
means  to  an  end ;  and  that  the  end  is  so  blessed  and  so  glorious  in 
the  fruition  of  joy  as  to  justify  the  intermediate  stage  of  suffering 
and  pain.  Thus  justice  is  not  ignored.  Christianity  recognizes  a 
government  of  justice,  and  a  government  of  pains  and  penalties,  now 
and  hereafter.  But  they  are  not  pains  and  penalties  for  the  sake  of 
indulfi-ino"  any  being  in  an  unnatural  and  hideous  ecstacy.  Every 
throb  of  the  great  heart  of  Christianity  is  a  blow  to  the  infernal  con- 
ception that  God  sits  and  enjoys  the  sufferings  of  the  damned.  It  is 
enough  to  make  men  renounce  their  faith  even  to  think  of  such  a 
conception  as  this,*as  taught  with  authority,  and  as  kept  alive  in  some 
of  the  most  excellent  Christian  sects  of  this  day.  It  is  a  hideous, 
outrageous  slander  upon  the  grandeur  of  the  love  and  the  purity  of 
the  administration,  and  the  beneficence  of  the  wisdom,  of  the  Kuler 
of  the  universe. 

"  But,"  it  is  asked,  "is  there  not  Scripture  for  it?"  There  is 
Scripture  for  anything  that  a  man  Avants  Scripture  for.  Yes,  there 
is  Scripture  for  it,  just  as  there  are  knives  in  the  oi-e  of  the  moun- 
tain. You  can  get  the  ore,  and  you  can  make  assassins'  knives  of 
it,  or  vou  can  make  plowshares  of  it.  Scripture  is  a  great  forest,  and 
you  can  go  into  it  and  cut  timber  and  make  it  up  into  a  great  variety 
of  utensils.  You  can  make  a  flail  out  of  this  text ;  or  you  can  make 
a  plow-handle  out  of  it ;  or  you  can  build  it  into  a  cradle  ;  or  you 
can  make  out  of  it  a  warrior's,  spear-handle.  Scripture  is  the  most 
usable  and  adaptable  thing  in  the  world.  It  is  with  that  as  it  is 
with  nature.  God  has  spread  good  and  bad  through  the  world. 
There  are  poisons  here,  and  fruits  there,  and  grains  yonder  ;  preci- 
pices lift  themselves  up  on  one  side,  and  meadows  and  gardens 
stretch  themselves  out  on  the  other ;  dangers  and  benefits,  son-ows 
and  joys,  lie  before  mon ;  and  they  can  take  the  one  or  the  other, 


LAW  OF  THJb]  UNIVERSE.  383 

And  the  necessity  of  choosing  is  a  part  of  their  discipline.  It  is  a 
part  of  the  education  of  their  intelligence.  And  it  is  their  interest 
to  take  the  right  things. 

The  spirit  of  Christianity,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  is  that  of 
remedial  suffering,  which  is  consonant  with  the  spirit  of  true  benev- 
olence. 

"Whom  the  Lord  loveth  he  chasteneth,  and  scourgeth  every  son  whom 
he  receiveth.  If  ye  endure  chastening,  God  dealeth  with  you  as  with  sons ; 
for  what  son  is  he  whom  the  Father  chasteneth  not  ?  But  if  ye  be  without 
chastisement,  whereof  all  are  partakers,  then  are  ye  bastards,  and  not  sons. 
Furthermore,  we  have  lial  fathers  of  our  flesh  Avhich  corrected  us,  and  we 
gave  them  reverence;  shall  we  not  much  rather  be  in  subjection  unto  the 
Father  of  spirits,  and  live  ?  For  they  verily  for  a  few  days  chastened  us  af  Ijcr 
their  own  pleasure;  but  he  for  our  profit,  that  we  might  be  partakers  of  his 
holiness." 

This  is  the  charter  of  administration.  It  is  the  marrow  of  his- 
tory. It  is  revealed  by  the  spirit  of  Christianity  that  there  are  in 
the  divine  love  all  these  operative  forces.  God,  although  he  is  full 
of  beneficence,  governs  matter  as  matter  must  be  governed.  And 
as  the  existences  which  he  governs  rise  in  the  scale,  he  changes 
the  form  of  government  from  that  of  brute  force  to  that  of  moral 
force.  Even  in  the  lower  forms  of  human  existence,  physical  power 
is  of  necessity  employed,  and  government  is  painful ;  but  as  men 
rise  higher  under  this  education,  there  come  in  social  motives  and 
interests.  And  as  in  this  school  of  discipline  men  rise  still  higher, 
they  come  into  an  academy  where  the  government  is  more  gentle, 
where  there  is  less  pain  and  more  pleasure  ;  and  when  they  have 
come  to  this  stage  in  the  development  of  their  moral  sense,  they 
have  reached  such  a  degree  of  spiritual  susceptibility  and  refinement 
that  God  can  deal  with  them  as  with  sons,  and  they  become  par- 
takers of  the  divine  nature,  and  are  no  more  strangers  and  for- 
eigners, but  are  friends  of  God,  and  enter  into  his  confidence,  and 
come  under  his  immediate  inspiration,  and  live  by  the  power  oi 
his  Spirit  which  is  in  them. 

Now,  to  me,  the  comfort  of  all  this  is  in  this  thought  that  the 
genius  ot  the  universe,  that  that  which  has  its  hand  on  the  helm,  is 
not  fate,  is  not  cruelty,  and  is  not  indifference  ;  that  all  the  vast  Avork 
that  is  going  on  is  a  work  which  is  under  the  inspiration  of  this  cen- 
tral spirit  of  benevolence.  It  is  a  benevolence  that  is  determined  to 
have  purity,  because  that  is  the  most  beneficent  thing.  It  is  a 
benevolence  that  is  determined  to  use  all  the  instruments  that  are 
necessary  to  secure  purity  now  and  hereafter.  Therefore  it  is  love 
"  out  of  a  pure  heart,  and  of  a  good  conscience,  and  of  faith  unfeigned. ' 
It  is  a  love  which  takes  in  the  present  and  the  future,  the  now  and 
the  hereafter.  It  is  a  love  that  takes  in  the  whole  being  of  man. 
This  it  is  that  presides. 


384  LOm,  THE  COMMON 

Time  is  a  school,  and  God  is  the  universal  Schoolmaster,  and 
men  are  learners,  and  are  graded  from  step  to  step  as  they  are  to 
take  the  education  that  belongs  to  the  successive  stages  of  their 
being. 

Such  a  providence  as  this  is  a  joy.  It  inspires  one  with  some 
hope  for  the  world.  If  I  thought  that  this  world  was  a  huge  bag, 
and  that  nations,  like  cats,  were  swung  round  by  some  giant  hand, 
they,  meantime,  fiercely  scratching  and  fighting  with  infernal  noise, 
what  would  I  preach  for  ?  I  would  say  to  men,  with  the  profoundest 
sorrow,  "  Get  all  the  pleasure  you  can,  give  yourselves  up  to  hilarity, 
eat,  drink,  and  be  merry,  for  to-morrow  you  die." 

But  such  is  not  the  world,  and  such  are  not  the  squabbles  of  life 
and  time.  There  are  the  fitful  spasms  of  force ;  there  are  the  gigan- 
tic processions  of  woe  and  cruelty  ;  there  are  groanings  and  travail- 
ings  in  pain  until  nor/ ;  but  there  is  a  divine  purpose  under  them  all, 
which  is  working  out  results  that  issue  from  the  very  soul  and 
heart  of  love.  There  is  a  good  time  coming.  It  will  take  it  a  great 
while  to  come;  the  road  is  long  and  the  work  is  large;  but  it  2S  com- 
ing; and  even  if  I  do  not  see  it  for  a  thousand  ages  yet,  it  is  a  joy 
and  a  comfort  for  me  to  know  that  it  is  coming.  Some  will  see  it 
here.  The  time  will  come  when  the  world  will  cease  to  grope ;  when 
no  man  shall  be  obliged  to  say  to  his  neighbor,  "  Know  ye  the  Lord." 
The  time  will  come  when  men  shall  beat  their  swords  into  pruning- 
hooks.  The  time  will  come  when  all  the  earth  shall  rest,  and  there 
shall  be  one  more  note  joined  to  that  universal  choir  that  chants  the 
praise  of  God,  and  of  supreme  and  victorious  Love. 

3.  Any  system  of  theology,  any  style  of  preaching,  which  leaves 
upon  the  mind  any  other  impression  than  that  of  divine  benevolence 
as  the  regent  disposition  of  God,  and  the  animating  spirit  of  provi- 
dence, is  unscriptural,  false  and  pernicious.  It  cannot  be  doubted 
that  systems  of  theology  have  left  other  impressions,  and  that  preach- 
ing does  leave,  and  that  continuously,  other  impressions  on  men's 
minds. 

I  distinctly  remember  that  as  a  child  my  predominant  thought 
of  God  was  one  of  fear  and  dread,  because  I  supposed  that  the  side 
of  God  which  was  turned  toward  me  was  vengeance.  I  was  taught 
that  I  was  sinful  long  before  I  knew  anything  but  that  I  was  so.  I  sup- 
posed that  I  was  a  sinner  because  I  did  not  feel  sinful.  I  was  taught 
that  the  not  feeling  that  which  unquestionably  was  the  underlying 
element  of  my  being,  was  one  of  the  tokens  of  sin.  And  I  strove  to 
feel ;  because  through  the  gate  of  feeling  I  hoped  to  pass  that  wall 
on  the  other  side  of  which  the  sun  shone.  I  was  on  the  north  side, 
where  all  was  snow ;  and  they  told  me  that  i '  I  could  get  on  the  other 
side,  I  should  find  that  there  the  sun  had  shone  so  long  that  the  vio- 


LAW  OF  TEE  UNIVERSE.  38 o 

lets  were  already  blooming.     I  made  the  effort ;  but  the  snow  was 
too  deep  for  me.     And  until  after  I  had  reached  my  majority,  my 
thought  of  God  was  one  of  dread  and  fear,  because  the  side  of  the 
divine  mind  that  was  turned  toward  me  was  the  side  of  "justice."  My 
thought   of   God  was  that  he  was   the  Just  Judge;   that   when- 
ever men  repented   of   their  sin   he  would  become  the   forgiving 
Friend  and   the  universal  Father,  but  that  until  men  did  repent, 
and  just  so  long  as  they  stood  unrepentant,  God  was  toward  them 
a  consuming  fire.     And  that  I  consider  to  be  a  heresy  that  strikes 
the  whole  Gospel  of  Christ  flat  in  the   face.     "  God  so  loved  the 
world  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten  Son"  to  die   for  it.     God 
did   not   love   the  world   because   Christ  coaxed   him   to.     Out  of 
love,  out  of  infinite  depths  of  desire  and  kindness,  he  gave  forth 
from  himself  this  expression  of  his  nature.    Oh  !  if  I  had  only  known 
-that  God  loved  me,  and  felt  toward  me  as  the  mother  feels  toward 
the  child  ;  if  some  one  had  said  to  me,  "  Even  as  your  mother  takes 
you  up  in  her  anns  to  expostulate  with  you,  to  expose*to  you  your 
fault  that  she  may  lead  you  out  of  it,  letting  no  others  know  it  till  it 
is  cured  and  passed  away;  as  she  helps  your  infirmity,  just  so  God 
does.     It  is  the  divine  nature  to  be  medicinal  to  infinite  weakness 
and  want.     God  does  not  wait  till  you  are  worth  loving  (for  you  Avill 
not  be,  this  side  of  eternity),  but  he  takes  you  up  just  as  you  are, that 
he  may  guide  and  mold  you  into  lovableness.       And  now,   while 
you  are  a  sinner,  while  your  heart  is  far  from  God  and  sympathy  and 
love ;  while  yet  there  is  the  whirl  of  passions  in  you,  God  does 
sympathize  with  you  and  love  you;    and  you  are  beloved.     Look 
up  ,  and  see  that  all  is  bright  and  winning  and  inviting."     Oh  !  if 
these  things  had  been  told  me  when  I  first  needed  to  know  them,  I 
might  have  walked  in  peace  when  I  was  eight  years  old — for  I  was 
subject  to  profound  religious  feelings  at  that  early  age.     But  the'f 
were  hidden  from  my  eyes  then  ;  and  till  I  was  twenty-five  years  old 
I  had  no  thought  that  it  was  the  nature  of  God  to  be  sorry  for  sin- 
ners.    The  impression  left  on  my  mind  was,  that  God  was  first  pure 
and  true  and  just ;  and  that  then,  if  men  conformed  to  certain  con- 
ditions, he  would  be  loving.     Whereas,  I  preach  that  God  is  loving 
all  the  time,  that  he  was  loving  from  the  beginning,  and  that  he  will 
be  loving  to  the  end.     I  prea.'h  that  love  is  the  Alpha  and  Omega 
of  the  divine  nature.     And  when  I  speak  of  God's  love,  I  mean  no 
puerile  thing ;  no  maudlin  sentiment :  I  mean  a  love  that  is  armed 
with  force,  and  fear,  and  pain,  and  all  things  that  are  necessary  to 
work  the  universe  up  from  its  low,  early  conditions,  through  all  the 
changing  phases  of  animalism,  and  through  all  the  planes  of  human- 
ity, and  bring  it  at  last  into  perfect  unity  and  accord  with  the  divine 


386  LOVU,  TEE  COMMON 

nature  and  the  divine  government.  This  is  a  love  that  does  not 
Bcruple  to  give  pain ;  but  it  is  pain  for  medicine.  It  is  a  love  that 
does  not  scruple  to  smite  and  to  punish — long  and  terribly  to  pun- 
ish ;  but  it  is  punishment  which  is  inflicted  as  the  bitterest  and  most 
loathsome  cup  is  put  to  the  lip  of  the  babe  by  the  mother,  because 
she  loves  the  child,  and  believes  that  in  that  cup  is  the  hope  of  its 
life.  God  subjects  individuals  and  nations  to  pains  and  sufferings 
that  they  may  be  brought  out  of  their  low  estate,  and  not  because 
he  wants  to  see  them  sizzle  and  fry.  Never  does  God  punish  because 
there  is  malignity  in  the  divine  mind — never !  never! 

"We  are,  therefore,  not  only  bound  in  our  preaching  to  preach 
right  doctrine,  but  we  are  bound  to  preach  it  with  the  right  em- 
phasis. I  think  there  has  been  more  error  in  emphasis  than  in  state- 
ment. There  has  been  enough,  in  all  conscience,  in  statement ;  but 
there  are  many  who  hold  technically  right  views  of  theology,  while 
they  so  emphasize  one  or  the  other  side  of  the  divine  nature  that  the 
impression  ifeft  upon  the  minds  of  those  that  hear  and  read  is  unfa- 
vorable.    Take  a  familiar  example. 

A  man  tells  you,  some  day,  "  You  have  hurt  the  feelings  of  all 
those  people  over  yonder."  "  I  ?"  you  say.  "  Yes,  you."  "  Why, 
bless  your  heart,  what  have  I  said  or  done?  I  did  not  want  to  hurt 
the  feelings  of  any  of  them."  No,  you  did  not  voluntarily  hurt  their 
feelings  ;  but  you  carried  your  being  in  such  a  way  that  it  rode  over 
them,  and  crushed  them  here,  and  hit  them  there.  You  did  not  take 
any  consideration  for  them;  so  that  every  one  of  them  has  felt 
bruised  or  wounded,  one  Avay  or  another,  by  you.  "  Well,"  you  say, 
"  I  did  not  intend  to."  No,  you  did  not  intend  to  ;  but  it  was  the 
way  that  you  carried  yourself  that  hurt  their  feelings. 

Now,  there  are  men  who  are  afraid  that  if  they  give  up  God's 
justice,  if  they  remit  on  that  side,  if  they  loose  the  bands,  and  do 
not  keep  the  spear-point  to  men's  consciences  all  the  time,  if  they  do 
not  preach  the  law  continually,  men  will  fly  off  from  the  truth,  and 
go  to  destruction.  And  so  they  emphasize  justice  to  such  a  degree, 
in  their  preaching,  as  to  produce  fear,  and  not  love — dread,  and  not 
trust.  Whereas,  God  should  be  preached  as  the  most  glorious  and 
the  most  attractive  and  the  most  winning  Being  in  the  universe.  He 
shouM  be  so  preached  as  to  leave  the  Impression  on  the  minds  of 
men  that  he  sums  up  in  his  nature  all  things  that  are  good,  or  he 
could  not  be  the  almighty  Good — for  God  is  but  a  contraction  for 
good. 

4.  In  church-life  there  must  be  a  practical  recognition  and  an  em- 
phatic honoring  of  this  principle  that  love  or  benevolence  is  the  na- 
ture of  all  law,  organization,  institution,  custom,  or  observance.  And 


LAW  OF  TEE  UNIVEBSE,  387 

althougli  the  Instruments  by  which  we  educate  men  are  not  to  be 
lightly  esteemed,  or  loosely  set  aside,  or  carelessly  drawn  away,  or 
recklessly  changed,  yet,  when  it  is  necessary  to  give  up  either  the 
spirit  of  true  benevolence  or  dogmas,  and  forms,  and  ceremonies,  by 
which  we  seek  to  produce  that  benevolence,  we  are  to  cling  to  the 
benevolence,  and  let  these  other  things  go.  This  princijjle  was  clearly 
enunciated  by  Christ,  when  he  said,  "  The  Sabbath  was  made  for 
man,  and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath.  And  I  say.  The  church  was  made 
for  man,  and  not  man  for  the  church.  Dogmas  and  doctrines  were 
made  for  man,  and  not  man  for  them.  Theology  was  made  to  help 
men,  and  men  were  not  made  to  be  sacrificed  to  it.  All  ordinances 
and  institutions  and  commandments  are  designed  to  subserve  men's 
uses  and  interests ;  and  it  should  be  so  held  and  taught  in  our  churches. 
The  end  sought,  which  throws  back  its  value  on  all  instruments  and 
processes,  is  the  sj^irit  of  true  beneficence,  kindness,  love,  self-sacri- 
fice, helpfulness.  The  maintenance  of  powerful  benevolence  is  more 
vital  to  the  Christtan  Church  than  dogmatic  systems. 

Suppose  a  church  do  all  believe  right  things,  and  all  of  them  feel 
wrong"  ones,  what  is  the  use  ?  Suppose  a  church  do  all  subscribe  to 
one  confession  of  faith,  and  all  of  them  quarrel  with  each  other,  and 
are  full  of  jealousies,  and  envyings,  and  debates,  and  strifes,  what 
does  it  amount  to,  that  they  are  theologically  united  ?  Suppose  a 
church  is  united  in  polity,  and  they  all  have  the  same  government, 
and  the  same  method  of  worship,  from  A  to  Z,  and  all  of  them  are 
devoid  of  charity,  what  does  it  signify  ?  Paul  tells  us,  that  though 
a  man  speak  with  the  tongue  of  men  and  of  angels  and  have  not 
charity,  he  is  as  sounding  brass,  or  a  tinkling  cymbal.  The  apostle 
teaches  us  that  all  generosity  is  unworthy  of  the  name  which  is  not 
prompted  by  the  spirit  of  benevolence.     He  says : 

•'Though  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed  the  poor,  and  though  I  give  my 
body  to  be  burned,  and  have  not  charity,  it  proflteth  me  nothing." 

Charity — the  divine  holiness-producing,  happiness-making  spirit 
of  love — this  is  the  end  of  the  law.  It  is  the  reason  for  the  church. 
It  is  the  reason  for  doctrines.  It  is  the  reason  for  polity  and  for 
worship.  And  yet,  men  sacrifice  the  feeling  for  the  sake  of  keeping 
the  instruments  by  which  the  feeling  is  produced.  Men  will  agitate 
and  embroil  a  whole  generation  in  disputing  about  doctrines  of  char- 
ity, engendering  all  manner  of  rancorous  feelings.  Princeton  will 
not  speak  to  New  Haven,  and  New  Haven  will  not  speak  to  Andover ; 
and  all  theological  seminaries  are  thrown  into  paroxysms.  And  they 
fiercely  assail  each  other,  and  attempt  to  drive  each  other  into  Or- 
thodoxy. And  the  churches,  one  after  another,  take  it  up ;  and  all 
caniidates  for  the  ministry  are  rigidly  examined  on  doctrinal  points; 


388  LOVE,  TEE  COMMON 

and  heresy-hunters,  like  a  pack  of  hounds,  are  at  their  heels,  to  eeo 
that  they  are  sound  in  truth  and  Orthodoxy. 

But  where  is  that  benevolence  which  truth  and  Orthodoxy  were 
meant  to  serve  ?  Where  is  that  benevolence  for  the  sake  of  which 
truth  and  Orthodoxy  were  ordained  ?  Where  is  that  benevolence 
by  which  men  are  to  be  brought  into  true  sympathetic  relations  one 
to  another  ?  It  is  sacrificed  for  the  sake  of  theology.  And  to-day 
our  churches  are  set  apart  one  from  another,  and  sects  are  arrayed 
one  against  another,  because  the  cohesion  of  benevolence  is  wanting. 

All  denominations  are  insisting  upon  it  that  we  must  obey.  But 
what  is  obedience?  Are  we  to  be  obedient  to  the  outside,  or 
to  the  inside?  Is  it  to  the  shuck  or  to  the  kernel  that  we  are 
to  be  obedient  ?  Which  is  greater  obedience,  that  of  obeying  the 
law,  "  Thou  slialt  love  the  Lord  thy  God,"  "  and  thy  neighbor," 
or  that  of  yielding  allegiance  to  a  doctrine  which  prescribes  some 
outward  observance  ?  Which  is  the  greater  obedience,  that  which 
is  demanded  by  the  divine  law  of  love,  or  that  which  is  demanded 
by  a  dogma  as  to  whether  you  will  go  under  the  water  or  not,  or  as 
to  whether  you  will  keep  Sunday  or  not  ?  These  dogmas  are  mere 
outside  leaves.     They  do  not  touch  the  root  of  the  thing. 

The  law  of  benevolence  says,  "  Do  you  love  ?"  There  is  the  rub  ; 
and  men  are  saying,  "  No,  we  do  not  love ;  but  the  reason  why  we 
do  not  love,  and  fellowship,  and  cooperate,  is  that  we  must  obey." 
Obey  how  ?  By  putting  on  black  during  one  part  of  the  service,  and 
white  during  another  ?  By  standing  with  the  back  to  the  audience 
during  one  part  of  the  reading,  and  with  the  face  to  the  audience  during 
another  part  ?  "  This,"  they  say,  "  is  ordered,  and  we  cannot  coun- 
tenance any  deviation  from  it."  And  so  people  sacrifice  benevolence 
to  externals — to  the  external  of  externals.  And  so  have  such  frib- 
bles deluded  men — and  wise  men.  Is  there  any  place  where  Satan 
has  spun  more  webs,  and  caught  more  victims,  than  in  the  Church 
of  Christ  ?  The  church  has  been  the  slaughter-house  of  Christianity. 

The  heart  of  Christendom  has  never  been  concentrated  as  it 
ought  to  be  upon  that  which  the  apostle  declares  to  be  the  end  of 
the  law.  The  whole  economy  of  grace  is  but  the  means  or  instru- 
ment by  which  men  are  to  seek  to  develop  this  larger  nature.  Never 
have  the  church  come  up  to  a  conception  of  this  large  Christian 
charge ;  and  I  think  they  have  never  had  a  universal  enthusiasm  for 
it,  which  would  not  let  it  go  out  from  their  sympathy.  We  have 
had  revivals  in  Avhich  there  has  been  enthusiasm  for  the  propagation 
of  the  faith.  We  have  had  awakenings  in  which  the  power  of  the 
church  was  brought  to  bear  for  the  spread  of  its  views  and  doctrines. 
The  church  has  had  its  periods  of  revival  for  dogmatic  settlements. 


LAW  OF  THE  UNIVERSE.  389 

Again  and  again  truths  have  been  rounded  out,  as  men  have  sup- 
posed, by  councils.  Successive  ages  have  gone  down  in  which 
churches  have  been  stirred  up  with  scholastic  fervor.  The  church 
has  had  its  celestial  rage  for  organization,  if  I  may  so  call  it ;  and 
has  arranged  how  it  should  exist,  and  in  what  shape,  and  with  what 
members,  and  with  what  distribution  of  authority.  And  the  whole 
world  has  stood  in  suspense  while  these  things  were  going  on  "  for 
the  sake  of  charity  " — which  charity,  meanwhile,  was  destroyed. 
The  church  has  had  its  fervor  and  revivals  over  ordinances,  and  over 
the  reformations  of  ordinances.  It  has  dispossessed  them  of  idolatry, 
and  reared  them  into  new  forms.  It  has  killed  some,  and  given  added 
life  to  others.  It  has  had  its  fervors  of  philanthropism  and  human- 
ity. And  now  it  is  more  in  that  condition,  perhaps,  than  it  has  been 
at  any  other  period.  Probably  there  was  never  a  time  when  there 
was  so  much  that  was  in  accordance  with  the  second  member  of  the 
great  law,  as  at  the  present  day.  There  have  been  times  when 
"  Thou  shalt  love  thy  God"  has  been  fulfilled  and  kept  almost  to 
the  forgetting  of  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor."  "  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbor,"  in  the  form  of  humanitarianism  and  the  relieving  of 
the  ills  of  the  race,  has  been  the  inspiration  of  our  day  almost  to  the 
forgetting  of  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  God."  But  when,  in  any  age, 
has  the  whole  church  been  seized,  as  by  a  divine  inspiration,  with 
the  thought  and  the  impulse  of  unfeigned  and  cheerful  love  one  to 
another  ?  When  has  there  been  the  feeling  in  the  church,  "  Benev- 
olence, after  all,  in  its  largest,  purest,  truest  Christian  type,  is  the 
most  precious  thing  we  have,  and  that  must  be  guarded,  whatever 
becomes  of  doctrine.  We  must  keep  this  spirit  whatever  becomes 
of  ordinances.  We  must  preserve  beneficence,  whatever  becomes 
of  orthodoxy.  We  must  not  lose  this  heart-love  or  heart-summer  ?" 
When  has  the  church  ever  had  that  feeling  or  inspiration  ?  When 
has  it  swept  through  any  nation,  or  from  nation  to  nation  ?  This 
highest  type  of  Christian  experience  the  church  is  yet  without. 

5.  We  are  to  expect,  in  each  individual,  benevolence  of  character, 
and  real  charity  of  life,  as  the  true  fulfilling  of  the  law.  In  insti- 
tuting a  series  of  educating  influences,  we  are  to  take  into  account 
what  truths  will  be  more  likely  to  restrain  evil  and  purge  the  soul 
to  purity  than  others.  It  makes  a  great  deal  of  difference,  in  insti- 
tuting educational  influences,  whether  a  man  believes  one  thing  or 
another.  Truth  is  better  than  error,  in  just  this,  that  it  has  more 
power  to  produce  the  final  state  of  beneficence  in  its  complex  form. 
There  is  such  a  thing  as  the  work  of  the  truth ;  and  therefore  we  are 
not  to  say  that  if  a  man  is  sincere,  that  is  enough.     That  would  be 


390  LOr^J,  THE  COMMON 

absurd  on  the  ship.  If  a  man  takes  his  reckoning  by  his  chronom- 
eter, and  it  is  all  Avrong,  will  his  sincerity  bring  him  into  New  York, 
or  cast  him  away  on  the  beach  ?  If  a  man  says,  "  Not  plowing  is 
wiser  than  plowing ;  sow  your  seed  upon  the  hard  ground,  and  let  it 
be — that  is  the  best  way,"  will  his  sincerity  make  it  the  best  way  ? 
If  a  man  says,  "  Chaff  is  just  as  good  as  wheat,  and  if  the  farmer 
only  thought  so,  and  sowed  it  in  faith  and  sincerity  he  would  get  a 
good  crop,"  would  he  ?  If  a  man  says,  "  Thistles  are  as  good  as 
wheat :  only  sow  them  sincerely  and  you  will  find  them  to  be  so," 
will  you  ?  The  more  sincere  a  man  \?  who  sows  cockles  and  thistles 
and  burdocks,  the  worse  it  is  for  him.  Sincerity  does  not  change 
natural  law.  And  so  I  say  that  in  instituting  an  economy  of  educa- 
tion, in  instituting  means  by  which  to  propagate  religion,  it  is  very 
important  that  men  should  be  true;  and  sincerity  is  no  substitute  for 
the  truth. 

I  do  not  say  that  the  ordinances  of  the  church  are  of  no  import- 
ance ;  I  say  that  they  are  important,  and  that  they  require  great 
thought  and  wisdom  ;  but  they  are  never  to  be  so  much  thought  of 
as  to  dispossess  that  for  which  they  were  themselves  created — the 
great  central  spirit  of  true  beneficence. 

More  than  that,  if  I  find  that  a  man's  heart  is  supremely  posses- 
sed of  this  divine  spirit,  I  am  no  longer  at  liberty  to  ask  him  how 
he  came  by  it.  If  it  is  there  ;  if  he  loves  God,  and  gives  evidence 
of  it ;  if  he  loves  his  fellowmen,  and  gives  evidence  of  it,  it  does  not 
make  any  difference,  it  must  not  make  any  difference  to  me,  where 
he  got  it. 

I  think  it  better  to  have  common  schools  by  which  to  teach  the 
population  how  to  read  ;  but  if  a  man  has  never  gone  to  the  com- 
mon school,  and  yet  can  read — is  not  reading  the  thing?  I  think 
that  going  to  school  is  the  best  way  of  getting  education  ;  but  then, 
suppose  a  man  gets  an  education  without  going  to  school,  is  that  not 
to  be  taken  as  sufficient  ?  I  think  that  if  a  man  goes  through  a 
school  course,  a  college  course,  a  university  course,  he  is  better  edu- 
cated than  if  he  does  not ;  but  here  and  there  a  man  comes  up,  and  ac- 
quires an  education,  and  makes  himself  felt,  without  going  througli 
anv  such  course ;  and  are  you  to  question  whether  he  is  educated 
or  not  because  he  acquired  his  education  outside  of  institutions? 
Because  institutions,  on  the  whole,  are  best  for  the  community,  are 
vou  to  deny  that  any  man  is  educated  who  does  not  go  through 
them? 

Now,  I  hold  that  there  are  great  fundamental  doctrines  of  the 
divine  government  and  the  divine  nature,  that  are  blessed  of  God 


LA  W  OF  THE  UNIVEBSE.  3  9 1 

for  men's  amelioration,  for  their  good ;  but  suppose  I  find  a  man  -who 
has  all  the  effects  which  these  doctrines  are  designed  to  work,  wrouo-ht 
in  him  by  other  influences,  without  being  technically  connected  with 
the  doctrines,  am  I  to  say  that  I  will  not  recognize  him  as  a  Chris- 
tian? I  say  that  the  spirit  of  God  in  the  heart  of  a  man  is  all  that 
we  have  a  right  to  look  for.  It  may  be  interesting  to  know  by  what 
process  he  arrived  at  the  result ;  but  we  are  to  judge  of  him  by  his 
fruit.  If  a  Universalist  gives  evidence  of  possessing  the  Spirit  of 
God,  his  life  is  his  voucher  for  his  faith.  And  if  he  applies  for  ad- 
mission into  our  church,  he  is  to  come  in,  not  because  he  is  a  Univer- 
salist, but  because  he  is  God's  ;  because  he  is  Christ's. 

^  Yes,"  it  is  said,  "  but  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  the  doc- 
trine ?"    Nothing.     "  But  suppose  a  man  wants  to  come  in  as  a  Uni- 
tarian ?"    He  could  not  come  in  as  a  Unitarian — not  if  I  had  my  way. 
I  would  stand  in  the  door,  and  would  not  let  him  in.     But  if  he 
should  say,  "  Sir,  I  am  ten   times  as   much   a   Christian  as   I   am 
a  Unitarian.    "  Ah  !  as  a  Christian,"  I  would  say,  "  you  can  come  in 
but  not  as  anything  else."  No  man  can  come  in  as  a  Swedenboro-itm  • 
but  he  can  as  a  Christian,  no  matter  if  he  has  the  Swedenboro-jan- 
ism  beside.     A  man  may  be  a  Christian,  and  yet  be  a  Unitarian  • 
and  a  man  maybe  an  orthodox  man  and  not  be  a  Christian.    It  is  as 
long  as  it  is  broad.     Some  men  are  a  great  deal  worse  than  their 
creed,  and  do  not  live  half  way  up  to  it ;  and  some  men  are  a  great 
deal  better  than  their  creed,  and  live  far  beyond  it.     Why  is  that? 
Because  God  employs  more  instruments  in  bringing  up  men  tlian 
your  church  and  Catechism.  God  has  a  church  in  father  and  mother  • 
God  has  instrumentalities  for  saving  men,  not  in  ordinances  and  doc- 
trines alone,  but  in  the  examples  of  holy  men.    Thousands  of  men  in 
adversity  and  peril  ai-e  helped  by  the  illustrious  lives  of  others,  as  no 
dogmas  or  ceremonies  could  help  them.    And  the  moment  we  see 
that  a  man  has  imbibed  the  true  spirit  of  benevolence,  we  are  to  re- 
ceive him,  though  we  may  reject  his  outward  belief.    We  arc  to  ac- 
cept a  man,  not  because  he  is  one  thing  or  another,  so  far  as  creeds 
are  concerned,  but  because  his  life  and  disposition  are  right.    A  man 
whose  heart  is  filled  with  love  for  God  and  his  fellow-men  has  a  ri^-ht 
to  stand  in  SAveet  fellowship  with  us. 

But  how  can  a  man  be  a  Christian  who  does  not  believe  in  Christ  ? 
There  is  the  puzzler.  He  cannot.  But  then,  a  man  may  believe 
in  Christ  who  does  not  believe  in  Christ's  name,  using  that  nam.e 
simply  in  its  superficial  meaning.  Do  we  mean  by  Christ  simply  tho 
letters  that  spell  out  that  name  ?  Is  not  Christ  merely  a  name  for 
certain  qualities — for  love,  for  purity,  for  truth,  for  a  holy  faith  in 
and  obedience  to  the  Saviour  and  God  ?     Is  it  not  a  name  that  sig» 


392  LOVJE,  TEH  COMMON 

nifies  not  simply  beliefs,  but  succor  of  love,  and  self-denial  of  love  ? 
Is  it  not  a  name  filled  full  of  the  sweetest  and  richest  fruit  of  divine 
being  ?  A  man  may  believe  in  the  thing  which  that  name  covers, 
who  yet,  from  the  force  of  prejudice  and  education,  is  unwilling 
to  take  the  name  itsel£  There  is  many  a  man  who  believes  in 
Christ,  only  he  will  not  call  him  by  that  name.  He  believes  in  God 
as  he  was  manifested  in  Christ.  He  does  not  know  much  about  the 
historical  part  of  Christianity.  He  believes  in  that  part  in  which  the 
heart  is  concerned.  He  may  not  believe  in  theology ;  he  may  not 
accept  all  the  dogmas  in  regard  to  days,,  and  incarnation,  and  media- 
tion, and  passion,  as  they  are  framed  into  theology  ;  but  he  has  taken 
the  spirit  of  Christ.  And  having  taken  that,  he  has  taken  Christ.  If 
a  man  takes  the  spirit  of  Christ,  it  does  not  matter  so  much  about 
the  name.     He  takes  Christ  who  takes  his  spirit. 

Now,  if  you  have  not  the  spirit  of  Christ,  go  away.  Do  you  say 
that  you  believe  in  the  Trinity  ?  Go  away  ;  your  spirit  is  bad.  Do 
you  say  that  you  believe  in  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost — 
three  Persons  and  one  Godhead  ?  Go  away  ;  you  are  filled  with 
envyings  and  jealousies  toward  your  neighbor.  Do  you  say  that  you 
are  sound  on  all  the  points  of  doctrine  ?  Go  away  ;  you  are,  with  all 
your  theology,  fierce  and  truculent  and  arrogant,  and  devoid  of  love 
toward  God  and  man.  You  believe  in  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost  ?  Yes,  you  believe  in  the  outside  of  them,  but  you  do 
not  believe  in  the  inside  of  them.  You  do  not  believe  in  that  which 
makes  them.  It  is  not  the  alphabet  that  makes  God.  It  is  not  the 
spelling  certain  letters  that  makes  God.  It  is  the  eternal  purity,  the 
eternal  sweetness,  the  eternal  remedialness  in  the  divine  power  and 
wisdom  and  justice,  employed  for  the  purposes  of  love — it  is  these 
that  make  God. 

A  man  comes  in  and  says,  "  I  do  not  know  much  about  these  doc- 
trines. I  know  very  little  about  Christ.  I  do  not  believe  that  he  is 
livine.  But  I  believe  that  his  spirit  is  to  be  mine."  He  believes  that 
the  spirit  of  Christ  is  gentleness,  is  sweetness,  is  forgiveness,  is  self- 
denial,  is  laboring  for  others,  is  the  feeling  which  the  tenderest 
mother  experiences  toward  her  child.  He  does  not  see  his  way  to 
believe  in  the  ordinary  view  of  his  divinity;  but  in  the  higher 
dew  of  it  he  does  believe.  He  thinks  he  does  not,  but  he  does.  He 
deceives  himself  He  is  misled  by  a  juggle  of  words.  For  that  which 
IS  Christ  is  the  inner  life  of  Christ ;  and  that  is  what  he  does  believe 
in.  As  to  the  power  of  registering  it,  and  putting  it  in  its  place  in  a 
system  of  theology,  it  would  be  better  if  he  had  it ;  but  that  is  not 
vitally  important.  If  any  man  has  the  spirit  of  Christ,  he  is  his.  He 
ioea  believe  in  him. 


LA  W  OF  THE  UNIVEESE.  393 

And  so,  what  of  your  Unitarianisni  ?  It  becomes  a  mere  word,  a 
simple  name.  I  do  not  myself  regard  that  doctrine  as  being  a  part  of 
Christianity,  or  as  being  that  in  which  it  is  desirable  to  educate 
people.  If  I  did  I  should  not  be  preaching  as  I  do  here.  If  I  thought 
that  to  be  the  best  doctrine,  I  should  take  it.  But  if  a  man  has  the 
spirit  of  Christ,  I  will  not  reject  him  because  he  holds  that  doctrine. 

Therefore,  if  a  person  comes  to  me  (and  it  would  be  all  the  better 
if  there  were  twenty  of  them),  and  gives  me  his  individual  experience 
in  his  daily  life,  and  gives  evidence  that  he  is  walking  in  the  spirit 
of  Christ  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  divine  presence,  I  take  him, 
because  he  does  believe  in  the  interior  of  God.  He  may  not  believe  in 
the  systematic  and  exterior  views  of  the  divine  Being  as  you  and  I 
have  classified  them  ;  but  he  takes  the  spirit  which  they  are  designed 
to  set  forth.  And  I  say  that  the  love  of  God  in  the  soul  shoVild  rise 
higher  than  ordinances,  than  dogmatic  systems,  than  sects,  than  the 
products  of  human  reason.  I  believe  that  Christianity  should  begin 
on  the  inside,  and  work  outside,  and  not  that  it  should  stand  outside 
and  wait  till  it  can  go  inside. 

And  so,  all  that  are  called  of  God,  and  i-espond  to  the  callj  and 
give  token  of  true  obedience  to  the  Father ;  all  that  by  sweet  sym- 
pathy and  self-denial  and  service  give  evidence  that  they  love  their 
fellow-men  ;  all  that  hope  in  the  mercy  of  God,  and  not  in  their  own 
vain  righteousness ;  all  that  show  by  their  lives  that  they  are  in  the 
fellowship  of  the  whole  invisible  church  of  Christ  in  heaven  and 
upon  earth — all  such  are  known  in  heaven,  are  named  there,  and  are 
longed  for  there,  and  will  certainly  be  found  there. 

May  God  grant  us  all  to  enter  largely  into  the  apostle's  generous 
and  noble  utterance : 

"  Now,  the  end  of  the  commandment  is  charity,  out  of  a  pure  heart,  and 
of  a  good  conscience,  and  of  faith  unfeigned." 


394  LOrJE,  TEE  COMMON 

PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMO:^T. 


Wc  thank  thee,  O  God,  that  thou  dost  not  accept  us  according  to  our 
merit.  It  is  not  the  purity  of  our  being,  nor  its  greatness,  that  commeuda 
us  to  theo.  Tliou  dost  not  measure  us  upon  thine  own  self.  It  is  our  feeble- 
ness which  excites  thy  pity.  It  is  our  unripeness  which  leads  thee  to  shine 
upon  us.  It  is  our  sin  which  makes  thee  a  Saviour  in  heart,  a  Saviour  in 
providence,  and  a  Saviour  in  grace.  For  thy  nature  is  to  be  generous — to  be 
gi'acious.  Thou  art  not  indiHereut  to  righteousness.  That  is  dear  to  thee; 
for  us  it  is  dear  to  thee.  Thou  art  not  willing  that  we  should  be  taken  away 
from  pain  and  suffering,  only  to  abide  as  cripples  in  deformity.  It  is  thy 
desire  that  we  should  be  shaped  by  love,  by  goodness,  by  compassion,  and, 
if  need  be,  by  fear  and  by  force.  Thou  art  sovereign,  and  thou  dost  mold 
the  great  universe  which  thou  hast  under  thee,  according  to  its  necessities, 
working  mightily  in  all  things,  and  working  in  all  things  according  to  their 
special  yeed,  that  thou  ma  jest  direct  universal  progress  and  growth  toward 
perfection,  toward  righteousness,  toward  all  godlikeness. 

We  rejoice  that  thou  art  supreme;  that  none  cau  hinder  thee;  that  only 
thyself  art  counsel  to  thyself;  that  only  thine  own  strength  is  equal  to  thy 
strengtii.  Thou,  O  God,  tJie  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit,  dwellest  in  unalloyed 
companionship  of  blessedness  ;  and  in  thee  are  the  roots  of  universal  being; 
and  in  thee  is  the  destiny  of  all.  From  thee  comes  all  history ;  and  back  to 
thee  report  all  the  events  of  history.  Thou  art  the  beginning  and  the  end— 
the  Alplia  and  the  Cmcga.  In  thee  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being. 
And  what  such  being  as  thine  must  be,  who  of  us,  from  our  diminished 
sph.re,  can  rise  to  understand?  GMmpses  we  have,  which  we  interpret  by 
the  things  that  are  gocd  in  ourselves;  but  the  height,  and  the  depth,  and 
the  length,  and  the  breadth,  of  inflnity — above  all,  the  scope  and  continuity 
of  thy  being — who  of  us  can  fathom  it?  It  is  toAvard  thyself  that  we  are  living* 
and  for  thyself  that  we  are  longing.  All  other  knowledge  fails  and  seems 
worthies.*,  if  we  may  but  stand  in  Zion  and  before  God,  and  see  thee  as  thou 
art,  and  feel  the  blesssduess  of  thy  life.  This  is  the  sum  of  all  desire  and 
aspiration. 

And  now,  O  Lord  !  as  thou  hast  been  patient  in  days  gone  by,  still  be  pa- 
tient with  us.  Command  all  thy  angels  of  mercy,  that  they  bear  an  expres- 
sion of  the  fullness  of  thy  love  to  us.  Speak  to  all  that  is  in  nature,  that  it 
may  serve  us  as  from  the  God  of  love.  And  we  pray  that  we  may  thus,  by 
thine  instruments  and  by  thy  servants,  be  lifted  up  from  stage  to  stage» 
from  sphere  to  sphere,  from  glory  to  glory,  until  we  staud  in  Zion  and  be- 
fore God. 

Listen  to  the  inaudible  sigh  to-day.  To-day  listen  to  the  unspoken  mes- 
sages of  the  heart.  Behold  the  things  which  we  do  not  see  ourselves.  Be- 
hold even  the  things  which  we  do  not  not  voluntarily  show  thee  for  fear  or 
for  shame.  Naked  and  open  must  we  be  before  Him  with  whom  we  have 
to  do. 

And  grant  unto  every  heart  that  is  here,  that  succor,  that  assurance,  that 
sympathy,  that  forgiving  message  of  mercy,  that  inspiration  of  hope  and  of 
courage,  which  it  needs.  For  some  are  sitting  under  the  shadow  Thou  art 
breaking  over  them  great  trouble.  And  yet,  art  not  thou  hid  within  the  cloud 
that  is  round  about  them  ?  We  pray  thee  that  they  may  not  fear  so  much 
their  outward  trouble.  Grant  that  they  may  have  sensibility  to  the  near 
approach  of  divine  providence,  and  that  they  may  have  faith  ministered  to 
them  to  know  that  the  hand  that  smites  them  is  the  hand  that  was  pierced 
for  them. 


LAW  OF  THB  UNIVEB8E.  395 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  be  near  to  those  that  are  in  bereavements,  and 
that  are  suffering  acute  anguish  of  heart.  And  when  thy  work  hath  had  its 
way ;  when  thou  hast  caused  them  to  suffer  enough,  establish  them  through 
suffering  in  faith  and  in  joy.  We  ask  not  so  much  that  the  thorns  may  be 
removed,  aa  that  thy  grace  may  be  sufficient  for  every  sufferer. 

Be  with  those  that  are  full  of  trouble  for  others.  Hast  thou  not  known 
this  burden,  Lord  Jesus  ?  Hast  thou  not  long  enough  carried  the  world  in 
thy  sympatliy  to  understand  and  succor  all  those  that  by  sympathy  for 
others  are  burdened  ?  And  may  they  learn  this  lesson  evermore.  As  thou 
lidst  carry  the  sorrows  of  men ;  as  thou  didst  bear  their  sins ;  as  their  sick- 
nesses were  laid  upon  thee;  as  thou  hast  been  the  great  Substitute  and 
Nurse,  bearing  the  world  and  all  its  creatures,  even  as  the  nurse  bears  the 
little  child,  so,  O  Lord !  we  beseech  of  thee  that  in  our  measure,  and  afar  off, 
ml  in  a  diminished  sphere,  and  with  exceeding  imperfection,  we  may  in 
kind  be  like  thee,  and  carry  one  another's  burdens,  and  bear  one  another's 
infirmities,  and  carry  one  another's  faults,  and  be  patient  with  each  other 
unto  the  end.  May  we  long  more  for  others  than  for  ourselves;  looking  not 
every  man  on  his  own  things,  but  every  man  also  on  the  things  of  another. 
And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  all  those  that 
have  come  up  hither  this  morning  to  speak  of  thy  mercies  and  of  thy  past 
kindnesses  to  them.  May  they  not  forget  to  give  thanks  who  are  blessed 
every  day.  May  wo  not  have  a  sense  of  need  more  than  of  thy  bounty. 
May  we  seek  more  to  see  what  God  hath  done  for  us,  than  to  see  that  which 
we  yet  lack. 

And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  families  that  are  accustomed  to 
meet  with  us  in  this  congregation.  If  any  are  withheld  from  the  place 
where  th?y  would  be,  may  that  place  where  they  are  be  a  pnnctuary.  And 
may  the  Spirit  of  God's  love  minister  to  every  one  of  them.  And  we  pray 
that  the  heavenly  light  may  not  be  withheld  from,  but  may  abide  upon 
every  Christian  family. 

And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  this  morning  remember  those  that  are  sick, 
and  those  that  wait  with  the  sick,  and  those  that  are  absent  from  among  us 
because  they  are  bearing  messages  to  the  unsought  and  to  the  untaught. 
And  remember  those  that  are  sent  afar  off  on  errands  of  thy  providence* 
Grant  that  everywhere  those  whose  hearts  look  wistfully  this  way  to-day, 
may  be  satisfied  from  the  sanctuary  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  Bear  messages  of 
mercy  and  of  peace  and  of  blessing  to  them. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  be  with  all,  to-day,  that  shall  preach  the  Gospel. 
May  they  be  strong  in  body,  and  inspired  of  heart,  to  do  the  will  of  God 
and  their  duty  toward  men.  We  pray,  O  Lord,  that  thou  wilt  unite  thy 
people  more  with  the  Spirit  of  love,  and  that  charity  may  pervade  the 
Church  of  Christ  upon  earth.  And  let  not  malign  power  have  any  more  its 
abiding  place  in  thy  temple  and  sanctuary.  May  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
come,  and  pure  love  be  developed  out  of  the  Church,  that  the  world  may 
begin  to  see  the  dawn  of  its  summer.  Let  thy  kingdom  come,  we  pray  thee, 
in  all  intelligence,  in  all  knowledge,  in  all  justice,  in  wise  laws,  in  pure  and 
upright  magistrates,  in  national  peace,  in  national  kindnesses  of  good  neigh- 
borhood. Bruig  to  an  end,  by  the  power  of  the  truth,  and  by  the  uprising 
nature  of  the  whole  human  family,  all  superstition,  and  all  misrule,  and  all 
oppression,  and  all  wars,  and  all  cruelties,  and  all  those  great  disasters  that 
60  long  have  ravaged  the  world.  Let  thy  kingdom,  in  which  dwelletU 
righteousness,  come,  and  thy  will  be  done  upon  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven. 
We  ask  it  for  Christ  Jesus'  sake.    Amen. 


3D 6      i07J?,  THE  COMMON  LAW  OF  THE  UNIVEESE, 
PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Father,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  the  word  that  has  been  spoken. 
May  it  be  for  edification.  Forgive  the  error;  forgive  the  misconception; 
forgive  anything  that  is  untoward  and  offensive  to  thy  mind.  Bring  us  into 
more  perfect  sympathy  of  love  with  thee.  May  we  give  evidence  that  we 
love  G  od,  in  that  we  love  the  brethren.  May  we  forget  all  differences.  May 
we  bear  with  each  other's  imperfections.  And  grant  that  there  may  at  last 
come  a  day  in  which  Love  is  God  among  men.  May  there  come  a  day  in 
which  the  hearts  of  thy  people  shall  be  filled  with  the  spirit  of  charity. 
And,  at  last,  wilt  thou  revive  love  in  all  the  ea  th.  And  come,  Lord  Jesus, 
come  quickly ;  for  the  whole  earth  doth  wait  for  thee.  And  to  thy  name 
shall  be  the  praise.  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit.    Ameii. 


XXIV. 

Self-Care,  amd  Care  for  Others. 


INVOCATION. 

Accept  our  thanks  and  our  songs,  O  heavenly  Father.  Continue  still  to 
inspire  us  by  thy  blessed  Spirit,  ministering  to  us  faith,  and  hope,  and  joy, 
and  holy  courage,  and  patience,  and  all  Christian  fruit  of  the  Spirit.  Grant 
unto  us,  this  morning,  delight  in  thy  praise.  Shine  inwardly.  That  which 
we  cannot  hear  with  our  bodily  ear,  may  we  understand  with  the  heart. 
May  we  have  the  witness  of  thy  Spirit  with  ours,  that  we  are  the  sons  of 
God,  conveyed  by  angels,  ministering  spirits  sent  forth  to  them  that  are  to 
be  heirs  of  salvation.  May  we  rejoice  even  though  there  be  clouds  and 
darkness,  sure  that  at  last  all  will  be  light.  Accept  our  devotion,  our 
praise,  and  our  love.  Grant  that  in  fellowship  one  with  another,  in  all  the 
services  of  this  day,  whether  in  the  sanctuary,  or  in  our  homes,  we  may 
bless  thee  and  be  ourselves  profited,  through  Christ,  our  Redeemer.    Amen. 

24 


SELF-CARE,  AND  CARE  FOR  OTHERS. 


"Look  not  every  man  on  his  own  things,  but  every  man  also  on  the 
things  of  others."— Phil,  ii.,  4. 


There  are  two  great  principles  which  run  through  society  ;  and 
all  true  prosperity  in  the  individual  and  in  society  at  large  depends 
upon  the  cooperation  of  these  seemingly  antagonist ic  principles. 
The  first  is  that  of  personal  responsibility,  and  the  second  is  that  of 
social  sympathy  and  social  liability  Every  man  is  bound  by  the 
law  of  his  being  to  seek  his  OAvn  good,  primarily.  Every  man  is 
bound  by  the  law  of  his  higher  bemg  to  seek  the  good  of  others  by 
that  primary  good  which  he  has  secured  for  himself.  When  it  is 
commanded,  therefore,  that  every  man  should  "  Mind  his  own  busi- 
ness, working  with  his  hands  the  thing  that  is  good,"  we  are  not  to 
say,  "That  is  just  what  I  ahvays  thought;  let  everybody  take  care 
of  himself,  and  then  the  world  will  all  be  taken  care  of."  For  the 
apostle  says,  afterward,  "  Look  not  every  man  on  his  ovrn  things, 
but  every  man  also  on  the  the  things  of  others." 

'  Ah  !"  say  some,  "  which  of  these  is  true  ?"  Ah  !  say  I,  both 
of  them.  They  are  both  principles  fundamental  and  fruitful ;  but 
they  are  principles  which,  like  dioecius  trees,  that,  carrying  the  male 
blossoms  on  one  tree,  and  the  female  blossoms  on  the  other,  require 
contiguity  and  interaction  before  the  fruit  can  come. 

It  is  only  by  taking  care  of  one's  OAvn  self  thoroughly,  and  then 
just  as  thoroughly  taking  care  of  others'  selves  by  that  force  which 
you  have  in  yourself,  that  you  can  act  consistently  and  harmoniously 
with  the  law  of  your  own  being — with  the  law  of  your  own  social 
habitation. 

Every  man,  then,  must  have  a  primary  care  for  himself,  and  for 
his  own  aifairs.  Every  man  must  see  to  it  that  his  own  body  is 
maintained  in  health.  Every  man  must  see,  tlierefore,  that  it  has 
food  and  warmth  and  raiment  and  shelter — that  it  has,  in  short,  all 
those  things  which  are  necessary  for  a  well-developed  bodily  con- 
dition. 

Every  man  also  should  secure  to  himself  a  prosperity  in  his  own 

Sunday  Morning,  Feb.  19, 1871.  Lesson  :  Matt.  VI.,  1&-34.    Hymns  (Plymouth  Col- 
lection) :  Nos.  218,  T^,  lOU. 


398  8ELF-CABB,  AND 

affairs.  Every  man  is  in  chai-ge.  first  of  certain  things  which  be- 
long to  him  in  especial,  which  he  is  to  think  of,  more  than  anybody 
else ;  which  he  is  to  think  of  before  he  thinks  of  anything  else,  and 
to  discharge  before  he  discharges  any  other  duty.  There  are  cer- 
tain great  primary  duties  that  we  owe  to  ourselves,  of  existence,  and 
of  sustenance,  and  of  accumulation,  mental,  social  and  physical.  We 
are  to  store  up  being,  and  we  are  to  store  up  resources,  and  we  are 
to  store  up  strength,  and  affluence,  wealth,  if  possible.  Taking  care 
of  one's  own  central  and  individual  self  is  good.  It  is  right.  It  is 
the  very  preparation  for  a  true  benevolence. 

It  is  dangerous  to  relax  the  responsibility  of  this  self-care,  even 
in  charity.  Next  to  the  danger  of  not  relieving  those  that  are  in 
need,  is  the  danger  of  doing  it.  If  you  do  not  relieve  those  that 
are  in  great  need,  you  yourself  suffer.  It  is  a  bad  thing  for  a  man 
to  shut  up  his  heart.  It  is  a  bad  thing  for  a  man  to  form  the  habit 
of  not  communicating  with  those  that  are  in  necessity.  It  is  better 
for  a  man,  though  he  is  oftentimes  deceived  in  the  objects  of  his  char- 
ity, to  let  the  stream  run  so  that  it  shall  not  be  choked  up  nor  ob- 
structed. But  next  to  the  damage  which  vou  do  to  yourself  by  not 
being  charitable,  is  the  damage  which  you  aie  liable  to  do  to  others 
by  being  charitable.  It  is  the  most  dangerous  thing  in  the  world 
to  help  a  man.  So  that  you  help  him  in  a  way  to  make  him  more 
powerful  to  take  care  of  himself,  succor  is  no  mischief.  But  the 
charity  which  men  administer,  for  the  most  part,  is  so  administered  as 
to  relieve  the  object  of  it  in  some  degree  of  the  pressure  of  this  great 
law  which  rests  on  every  man  to  take  of  himself  It  is  the  most 
dangerous  thing  that  you  can  do,  to  cut  the  cord  of  self-responsibility, 
and  to  make  men  feel  that  they  can  be  helped ;  that  they  do  not 
need  to  exert  themselves ;  that  there  are  no  thorns  against  which 
they  will  fall  if  they  are  indolent.  The  pressure  of  God's  provi- 
dence and  God's  law  is  to  make  men  stand  up  independently  and 
take  care  of  themselves,  and  when  they  fail  by  sickness,  weakness 
and  overthrow,  still  to  administer  to  them  succor.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  delicate  things  in  the  world,  so  to  succor  men  as  not  to  destroy 
them.  Of  course,  there  will  be  a  residuum  in  a  household,  or  in  a 
community,  that  are  j)ast  self-help  ;  and  they  are  the  true  objects  of 
charity.  And  yet,  even  among  the  sick  and  poor  there  should  be  a 
spirit  of  self-reliance  cherished  assiduously.  For  when  a  man  has 
uo  idea  of  taking  care  of  himself,  he  lacks  the  very  essential 
element  of  mnahood.  We  are  to  bring  up  our  children  in  this  way. 
We  are  to  bring  them  up  so  that  they  shall  have  self-respect ;  so 
that  they  shall  have  a  spirit  of  care.     But  of  this  more,  further  on. 

This  primary  regard  for  our  own  existence,  and  for  our  own 


CABU  FOB  OTHEBS.  399 

prosperity,  is  not,  however,  the  only  principle  which  is  at  worlc,  and 
which  we  have  to  take  time  to  consult.  We  are  not  solitary  in 
this  life.  We  are  social.  Although  our  neighbors  are  not  in  one 
sense  a  part  of  ourselves,  as  our  separate  members  or  limbs  are  a 
part  of  our  body ;  yet,  in  another  sense  they  are  a  part  of  us.  It 
would  be  impossible  for  a  man  to  live  in  solitude,  and  exercise  all 
the  faculties  of  his  mind.  Many  of  our  faculties  imply  correlated 
existences  ;  and  we  could  not  employ  them  and  develop  them  if  we 
were  shut  oif  from  all  society.  Our  association  with  others  is  a 
condition  of  education  ;  it  is  a  condition  of  development ;  it  is  a 
condition  of  happiness.  Therefore  it  is  that  to  attempt  to  reform 
men  who  have  been  criminals  by  shutting  them  off  from  society,  is 
to  attempt  to  reform  them  by  denying  them  one  of  the  fundamental 
laws  of  their  structure  and  of  God's  administration.  It  is  unnatural, 
barbarous,  pernicious  ! 

We  have  duties  to  others,  as  much  as  to  ourselves.  We  are  as 
much  bound  to  take  care  of  others  as  to  take  care  of  ourselves.  In 
the  sphere  of  benevolence,  we  are  to  look  first  to  our  own  develop- 
ment and  strengthening ;  and  then  we  are  just  as  really,  though 
perhaps  not  in  as  great  a  degree  in  all  cases,  to  look  to  the  develop- 
ment and  strengthening  of  others.  The  law  is,  "  Love  thy  neighbor 
as  thyself."  As,  there,  does  not  carry  the  force  of  quantity,  but  of 
quality.  Our  affection  for  our  neighbors  is  to  be  as  disinterested 
and  as  real  as  our  affection  for  ourselves.  That  which  we  give  to 
them  is  not  to  be  a  low  and  empty  feeling.  It  is  to  be  large  and 
generous — the  same  as  the  love  that  we  give  to  ourselves.  It  is  not 
meant  that  we  are  to  think  as  much  for  our  neighbors  as  for  our- 
selves ;  but  we  are  to  love  our  neighbors,  all  of  them ;  and  our  affec- 
tion for  them  is  to  be  as  disinterested  as  that  affection  which  we  feel 
toward  our  own  selves. 

This  doctrine  does  not  allow  men  to  neglect  their  affairs  for 
the  sake  of  pretentious  benevolence.  There  are  many  who  seek  a 
fugitive  excitement ;  who  seek  praise,  perhaps  ;  who  indulge  a  patron- 
izing pi'ide,  it  may  be,  in  a  perpetual  attempt  to  take  care  of  every- 
body but  themselves.  They  may  be  appointed  as  father  and  mother 
in  the  household ;  and  then  their  sphere  is  there,  and  there  they  must 
serve  God,  and  there  they  must  serve  society.  He  Avho  rears  and 
cares  for  a  Christian  household  is  laboring  for  an  institution  than 
which  society  has  none  more  precious  and  more  necessary. 

But  there  are  many  who  reverse  the  order.  Your  duty  is  first 
to  your  household  ;  and  then  so  much  of  strength  and  time  as  you 
have  after  your  duty  to  your  household  is  performed,  is  to  be  given 
to  the  community.     ^Tou  are  to  begin  with  those  next  to  you;  and 


400  SELF- V ABE,  AND 

gradually  the  sphere  is  to  grow  larger  and  larger.  That  is  the  natural 
order.  But  there  are  many  who  first  take  care  of  the  community, 
and  then  go  home  with  the  scraps  of  their  time  and  take  care  of  the 
family.  There  are  many  who  are  seized  with  an  infernal  spirit  of 
usefulness.  They  are  not  well  spoken  of  by  the  apostle.  He  calls 
them  "  Cusy-bodies  in  other  men's  matters."  Persons,  they  are,  who 
are  incessantly  running  hither  and  thither.  They  rise  early  and  sit 
up  late,  that  they  may  attend  to  this  or  that  matter  of  public  in- 
terest. They  lay  aside  home  duties  for  the  sake  of  performing  duties 
that  are  outside  of  home.  They  are  too  much  occupied  with  the 
affairs  of  some  church  or  some  society  to  commune  with  their  chil- 
dren. There  is  no  quiet,  no  rest,  with  them.  For  there  is  this  visit 
to  make,  or  that  committee  to  meet.  They  are  working  for  the  com- 
munity. They  are  like  shuttles,  incessantly  carrying  busy-bodies' 
thiead,  up  and  down,  back  and  forth,  from  side  to  side.  They  are 
smitten,  as  they  think,  by  duty. 

Now,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  this  encouraged  in  the  word  of 
God ;  and  no  man  can  say,  "  Look  not  every  man  on  his  own  things, 
but  also  on  the  things  of  others,"  and  make  that  an  excuse  for  neg- 
lecting home  duties.  Whatever  else  you  neglect,  do  not  neglect 
self,  and  the  branching  of  self  into  the  household.  That  is  normal 
That  is  the  very  road  to  benevolence.  Take  care  of  home.  Make 
home  strong,  beautiful,  rich,  happy  ;  and  then  let  home  overflow. 
Blessed  are  they  who  get  the  light,  and  the  example,  the  succor 
which  come  from  a  home-heart  filled  up  with  the  measure  of 
duty,  and  that  then,  in  the  strength  that  it  has  derived  from  home 
as  a  center,  radiates  and  carries  intelligence  and  sympathy  and  suc- 
cor to  those  who  need  it  outside.  First  gain  power  at  home. 
Be  stronger  there  than  anywhei'e  else.  Be  more  faithful  there  than 
anywhere  else.  Make  home,  as  it  were,  an  armory.  Make  it  as  a 
heavenly  garden.  And  then  take  the  fruit  and  the  flowers 
that  you  have  raised  there,  and  bear  them  forth  to  those  that  are 
outside.  So  you  will  have  something  to  carry  that  will  be  worth 
carrying. 

Still  less  is  it  the  spirit  of  this  injunction  to  look  after  others' 
welfare  and  not  our  own  simply,  when  properly  rendered,  to  en- 
courage impertinent  prying,  and  curiosity,  and  meddling,  and  ad- 
vice-giving in  the  affairs  of  others.  There  are  many  persons  who 
are  atmospheric  popes.  They  in  some  sense  distribute  themselves 
like  a  malaria  over  the  whole  community.  They  go  everywhere, 
looking  after  somebody  or  other.  L  is  not  that  they  are  wiser  or 
better  than  others ;  but  they  seem  to  have  an  insane  notion  that  they 
must  see  everything  that  is  out  of  order,  and  make  suggestions  hero, 


CABU  FOE  0THEB8.  401 

and  give  advice  there,  and  make  inquiry  yonder.  They  run  from 
one  to  another,  with  incessant  clatter,  offering  advice  which  is  cheaj) 
to  give,  but  dear  to  take.  And  they  fill  up  the  round  of  their  useless 
lives  in  this  meddlesome  spirit.  God  abhors  them,  and  the  devil 
loves  them.     Mischief-makers  they  are — inevitable  mischief-makers. 

Let  men  give  succor  when  succor  calls.  Let  men  give  counsel 
sparingly,  even  when  counsel  is  asked.  Let  men  intrude  nothing  of 
themselves  upon  those  who  do  not  need  intrusion.  All  prying  im- 
pertinences ;  all  officious  mquests ;  all  walkings  up  and  down  with  a 
kind  of  authority  among  men,  as  if  you  were  better  than  they,  or 
competent  to  instruct  them — these  things  are  foreign,  I  will  not  say 
to  Ohristianity  alone,  but  to  common  sense,  on  which  all  true  Chris- 
tianity must  be  built. 

The  two  principles  of  self-care,  and  benevolence,  or  care  of  others, 
where  they  are  coordinated,  work  together  in  perfect  harmony. 
Each  restrains  the  other.  Each  makes  the  other  fruitful.  A  wise 
care  for  one's  self  makes  it  necessary  that  you  should  think  for 
others.  You  cannot  take  care  of  yourself  wisely  without  it.  A  wise 
sympathy  for  others'  affairs  can  be  most  profitably  shown  by  those 
who  have  first  taken  care  of  themselves.  If  you  desire  to  be  benevo- 
lent, you  must  look  on  your  own  affairs.  If  you  desire  to  be 
thorough  in  your  own  affairs,  you  must  look  on  others'  affairs.  Do 
both.  Take  care  of  individual  duty,  and  also  of  social  duty.  Let 
them  be  ccoidinated,  and  work  together.  Neither  can  go  alone. 
They  are  reciprocal.  They  are  auxiliaries  one  of  the  other.  No 
man  can  be  so  busy,  ordinarily,  that  he  has  not  some  time  to  think 
of  other  people.  Because  there  are  some  people  who  are  continually 
running  up  and  down  through  the  community  and  thinking  only  of 
others'  affairs,  is  no  reason  why  you  should  go  to  the  opposite 
extreme,  and  never  think  of  others'  affairs.  Because  some  persons 
are  all  the  time  running  after  committees,  and  sewing  circles, 
and  consultation  meetings,  and  visitations,  and  their  footsteps  are 
rarer  on  their  own  threshold  than  on  others',  is  no  reason  why 
you  should  be  a  nun  or  a  monk.  Their  mistake  does  not  justify 
yours.  Their  extreme  does  not  justify  your  rebound  to  the  other 
extreme.  There  is  to  be  temperateness  on  one  side  and  on  the  other. 
You  are  to  care  for  others  ;  and  yet  you  are  not  to  care  for  others 
to  such  a  degree  that  you  shall  neglect  to  cai-e  for  yourself  You 
are  to  care  for  yourself  ;  and  yet  not  to  such  a  degree  that  you  shall 
neglect  to  care  for  others.  No  man  is  selfish  whose  benevolence 
promotes  his  own  interest.  No  man  is  wise  in  self-interest  who  does 
not  make  his  prosperity  that  of  others. 


402  SELF- C ABE,  AND 

"We  may  examine  this  truth  briefly  in  its  relations  to  individuak, 
to  neighborhoods,  to  sections  of  a  country  and  to  nations  ;  and  I 
propose  to  examine  it  in  every  one  of  these  points. 

I.  In  regard  to  the  individual.  While  every  man  should  mind 
his  own  business  shrewdly  and  skillfully,  he  should  not  do  it  ex- 
clusively and  selfishly.  The  man  who  thinks  only  of  himself,  cheats 
himself.  He  narrows  his  sphere.  He  prevents  the  development  in 
himself  of  those  sympathies  which  are  like  quills  in  the  wing.  He 
weakens  his  power,  on  the  whole,  though  he  may  intensify  his  power 
in  special  things.  Exclusive  thought  of  yourself,  and  of  your  own 
plans,  and  your  own  prosperity,  will  at  last  produce  friction,  and 
collision,  and  rivalry,  and  oj)position.  And  a  man  finds  his  way 
growing  harder  and  harder,  the  more  selfish  he  is.  If  a  man  makes 
his  prosperity  a' ways  work  for  the  good  of  his  neighbors,  at  last 
when  it  is  found  out  that  he  is  seeking  others'  welfare  as  well  as 
his  own,  all  men  want  him  to  advance,  and  they  help  him,  and  re- 
ward him ;  but  when  a  man  lives  simply  for  himself,  when  a  man  is 
nothing  but  a  magnified  augur,  and  is  cutting  into  the  substance  of 
the  community,  boring  his  way  steadily  and  by  force,  the  further  he 
goes  in,  the  harder  it  is  for  him  to  turn  round.  Friction  and  opposi- 
tion meet  him  at  every  step.  And  selfishness  at  last  receives  its  own 
punishment.  No  man  is  more  cheated  than  the  selfish  man.  Selfish- 
ness takes  away  much  enjoyment,  and  finally  wrecks  men  in  old  age. 
And  often  when  they  are  successful  in  outward  things,  and  endowed 
with  prosperity,  they  are  unhappy.  Nothing  is  more  common  than 
to  see  men  who  have  succeeded  in  the  ambition  of  power  or  wealth 
discontented. 

In  old  age  many  men  begin,  in  an  awkward  and  mechanical  way, 
to  practice  acts  of  generosity  without  being  generous,  and  acts  of 
kindness  without  being  kind.  These  traits  should  be  can-ied  along 
with  a  man's  business,  if  they  are  to  exist  in  his  disposition  at  the 
close  of  a  business  career.  But  many  a  man  makes  his  business  as 
hard  as  iron.  Every  part  of  his  plan  is  law.  And  while  he  is  en- 
gaged in  accumulating  wealth,  and  his  mind  is  keyed  up  with  an 
ambition  to  become  richer,  he  experiences  a  measure  of  satisfaction. 
But  after  he  has  achieved  prosperity,  and  got  a  million,  or  two 
millions,  or  three  millions,  he  begins  to  say,  "  Ah  !  what  is  the  end 
of  it  ?"  A  man  very  soon  comes  to  the  end  of  all  the  money  that 
he  can  use  with  any  profit.  Then  comes  the  simple  ambition  of 
acquiring  money ;  and  that  is  very  thin  and  vaporous.  And  the 
man  says,  "Is  it  not  time  for  me  to  begin  to  enjoy  my  wealth?" 
He  wants  to  enjoy  it.     And  sometimes  he  seeks  to  get  comfort  out 


I 


CABE  FOB  OTHEBS.  403 

of  it  by  making  a  posthumous  bequest,  saying,  "  I  will  hold  on  to  it 
as  lon^as  I  can  ;  but  I  will  take  comfort  from  the  thought  that  I 
have  provided  in  my  will  for  the  erection  of  that  building."  Others 
in  old  age  begin  to  bestow  their  goods  to  feed  the  poor  ;  and  if  they 
give  them  in  generosity  they  will  enjoy  more  at  the  end  of  life  than 
they  did  at  the  beginning  ;  but  after  men  have  trained  themselves  to 
a  selfish  method  of  administering  their  wealth,  that  selfishness  has 
taken  hold  of  them,  and  all  that  they  give  away  is  only  another  form 
of  selfishness,  so  far  as  they  themselves  are  concerned.  The  com- 
munity may  derive  benefit  from  it,  but  they  will  not  be  much 
benefited  by  it. 

It  is  very  dangerous  for  a  man  to  think  only  of  himself — very 
dangerous,  I  mean,  to  him.  You  may  prosper  outwardly ;  but  what 
means  prosperity  in  this  world  ?  It  means  a  home  made  happy.  It 
means  the  education  of  the  whole  being.  It  means  the  building  a  man 
up  so  that  he  has  enjoyment  in  all  parts  of  his  nature  in  its  proper 
force.  If  a  man  limits  his  thoughts  to  himself,  he  seals  up  all  the 
cells  from  which  honey  is  to  come.  There  are  few  faculties  that  are 
not  dead  in  him.  And  when  he  comes  to  old  age,  he  may  have  a  few 
branches  that  have  green  leaves  on  them,  but  the  tree  at.  large  is 
dead,  and  so  is  fruitless. 

I  see  men  in  New  York  (none  in  Brooklyn !)  who  are  repeating, 
with  golden  bricks,  the  old  story  which  is  told  of  an  Italian  noble. 
It  is  said  that  he  placed  a  woman  in  a  little  niche  just  large  enough 
for  her  to  stand  in,  and  that  by  the  masons  a  row  of  bricks  was  laid, 
and  that  thus  begun,  a  wall  encircling  her  rose  steadily  up,  and  up, 
until  finally,  when  the  last  brick  was  laid,  she  was  left  standing  in  her 
living  tomb.  It  is  a  horrible  story.  Very  likely  it  is  true ;  for  they 
sought  horror  ingeniously  then.  But  it  is  not  half  as  horrible  as 
what  I  see  going  on  in  New  York  perpetually.  New  York  men  take 
golden  bricks,  and  lay  a  circle  round  them,  and  the  wall  rises,  first 
up  to  their  knees,  and  then  up  to  their  breast ;  and  then  up  tc  their 
neck,  leaving  their  head  peering  above  the  golden  bricks.  And  lit- 
tle by  little,  circle  by  circle,  the  wall  still  rises,  until  by  and  by  there 
is  only  a  small  orifice  above  their  head.  And  at  last  the  top  brick 
is  laid  on,  and  that  orifice  is  closed,  and  the  man  smothers  behind 
his  golden  bricks.     All  the  man  that  was  in  him  is  dead. 

We  hear  some  of  these  men  faintly  cry  out,  murmuring.  They 
have  thought  of  themselves  until  there  is  only  that  one  single  chord 
that  sounds  in  them.  And  there  is  not  one  of  God's  angels  in  heaven, 
nor  in  all  the  distribution  of  spirits  through  the  air,  that  loves  to 
play  on  one  chord,  and  that  selfihness.  There  is  no  music  in  it.  It 
makes  a  good  bass  when  a  man  raises  a  whole  scale  above  it ;  but 
alone  it  is  harsh  and  stridulous. 


404  8ELF-CABE,  AND 

A  wise  benevolence  shonld  proceed  from  a  good  solid  center. 
You  should  take  care  of  yourself.  You  should  be  an  organized  bus- 
iness man ;  but  you  should  be  an  organized  man  anyhow.  Your  own 
self  should  be  made  strong  and  sharp  and  active ;  for  you  are  to  build 
a  foundation  on  which  you  can  get  leverage.  You  are  to  create, 
round  about  you,  you  yourself,  as  it  were,  being  an  anvil  and  forge, 
that  which  you  shall  use  in  a  higher  sphere  for  beneficence.  First, 
self.  That  is  the  lowest  foundation.  But  you  stand  on  it.  And 
by  and  by  sympathy  and  benevolence  will  begin  to  expand;  and 
you  will  have  something  by  which  to  go  into  the  sphere  of  helpful- 
ness and  activity  to  others. 

The  apostle,  therefore,  speaking  of  the  lazy  man  that  stole,  says : 

"  Let  him  labor,  working  with  his  hands  the  thing  that  is  good,  that  he 
may  have  to  give  to  him  that  needeth." 

That  is  the  object  of  working  for  yourself.  Take  care  of  yourself, 
and  then  you  will  have  something  to  give  to  other  folks.  That  is 
the  motive  for  working  for  yourself. 

A  benevolent  squandering,  therefore,  brings  frugality  to  contempt. 
As  there  are  those  who  are  "  busy-bodies  in  other  men's  matters"  so- 
cially, so  we  frequently  see  in  society  persons  who  practice  a  kind 
of  indiscriminate,  unwise,  unorganized,  profligate  benevolence.  We 
see  persons  who  take  no  care  of  their  business ;  who  do  not  keep  any 
proportion  between  capital  and  receipt ;  who  are  careless  of  watch- 
fulness and  frugality.  They  are  too  kind.  They  trust  every  one. 
They  cannot  collect  that  which  is  due  to  them.  They  are  so  busy 
with  others'  business  that  their  own  business  sufiers.  That  is  not 
true  benevolence.  It  is  a  squandering  of  benevolence.  Every 
man's  center  should  be  a  working  center  where  the  law  of  sym- 
pathy resides.  Every  man  should  be  strong  in  himself;  every 
man  should  be  fully  equipped ;  and  then  when  he  goes  into  the 
sphere  and  work  of  benevolence  he  is  worth  something.  Other- 
wise, he  is  careless,  smiling,  aimless,  tottling.  A  man  that  lets 
everything  slip  through  his  fingers — what  purpose  does  he  serve, 
in  running  through  his  little  means,  but  to  set  an  example  which 
stingy  men  plead  for  their  stinginess  ?  Do  they  not  point  at  him, 
and  say,  "  There  is  one  of  your  benevolent  men  I  Wh'en  I  began 
business  in  this  town,  that  man  was  one  of  the  most  prosperous  men 
in  the  village  ;  and  now  where  is  he  ?  What  is  benevolence  worth  ?" 
They  deride  it.  But  this  is  benevolence  run  mad.  It  is  not  true 
benevolence. 

There  is  truth,  therefore,  in  the  proverb,  "  Charity  begins  at 
home,"  whether  it  begins  at  the  store  or  at  the  house.  A  man  that 
gives  away  all  his  seed-corn  in  the  spring  will  beg  in  the  autumru    A 


CABE  FOB  OTHEBS.  405 

man  that  gives  away  all  his  time  and  strength  outside  of  home  will 
have  no  home.  A  man  that  gives  away  all  his  time  and  strength 
outside  of  his  business  affairs  will  very  soon  he  bankrupt  or  thrift- 
less. ■  And  it  ought  to  be  understood  that  the  condition  of  power  in 
benevolence  is  that  it  shall  come  by  a  man's  taking  care  of  himself. 
And  then  it  should  be  understood  (and  with  emphasis,  too)  that  when 
a  man  has  become  strong  by  taking  care  of  himself,  he  shall  use  his 
power  for  the  benefit  of  his  fellow  men.  When  a  man  has  become 
rich  in  substance,  let  him  employ  that  substance  for  some  purpose  of 
good  to  others.  God  says  to  rich  men,  "  Be  rich  in  good  works."  If 
you  have  organized  wealth,  use  it ;  and  tlie  law  of  using  it  is  the  law 
of  social  sympathy  and  the  law  of  benevolence. 

2.  This  law  of  self-care  and  of  care  for  others,  coordinate  and  har- 
monious, is  indispensable  to  the  prosperity  of  a  neighborhood.  Every 
man  should  have  his  own  center,  and  his  own  private  success.  Inde- 
pendence is  a  matter  which  should  be  bred  in  us  by  religion  and  by 
the  whole  instruction  of  the  household.  We  ought  to  bring  up  our 
childi-en  to  ask  as  little  as  possible,  and  to  give  as  much  as  possible. 
We  ought  to  bring  up  our  children  to  depend  upon  their  own  re- 
sources, and  never  to  ask  a  question  if  they  can  find  out  by  toashig 
their  own  brains ;  and  never  to  let  any  question  go  unsolved,  when, 
if  they  cannot  solve  it  themselves,  they  can  get  it  solved  by  asking 
questions.  Ask,  but  ask  as  little  as  possible,  should  be  the  rule.  We 
ought  to  bring  up  our  children  to  despise  charity,  except  that  which 
comes  out  of  tlieir  own  hands.  Take  nothing  from  any  man  if  you 
can  avoid  it.  Be  high-minded.  Even  service  of  a  personal  kind  be 
not  too  ready  to  receive.  Give  an  equivalent  for  all  that  you  receive. 
Deal  with  others,  not  in  a  spirit  of  bargaining,  but  in  the  spirit  of 
honorable  pride.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  Christian  honor ;  and  there 
is  nothing  about  which  it  should  be  more  sensitive  tlian  this  of  re- 
ceiving from  others  that  which  you  should  have  the  power  yourself 
to  originate  or  to  take.  Bring  up  your  children  to  be  cheeiful,  to  be 
brave,  to  be  prosper*ous,  having  no  other  thought  of  life  but  this : 
"  That  wliich  I  can  gain  myself  I  will  gain  ;  but  that  which  I  cannot 
gain  I  will  do  without.  I  can  afford  to  be  poor,  but  I  cannot  ufford 
to  be  a  pauper."  There  is  a  law  of  manhood  which  is  more  important 
than  all  the  external  adjuvants  of  life ;  and  it  is  our  business  to  make 
this  felt  more.     You  can  scarcely  intensify  it  too  mucli. 

But  if  you  teach  tl)is  t)nly  to  your  cliildren,  you  will  teach  them  to 
be  hard  and  stingy  and  unhappy.  You  must  go  further  than  that.  P'or 
when  you  have  made  them  independent,  self-reliant,  industrious,  enter- 
pi-ising,  fruitful,  safe,  you  must  teach  them  that  they  are  not  to  use 
all  their  life-force  upon  themselves,  but  that  their  neighbors,  and  the 


406  8ELF-(JAEE,  AND 

neigliLorliood,  whether  it  be  a  country  neighborhood,  or  a  village, 
or  a  town,  or  city,  are  to  be  benefitted  by  it.  Teach  them  to  do  in 
a  larger  sphere  what  they  have  done  in  a  smaller.  Benevolence  must 
be  combined  witli  private  integrity,  and  private  industry.  The  con- 
sideration of  public  welfare  should  be  a  part,  then,  of  the  attention 
which  our  children  should  receive  at  home,  and  a  part,  also,  of  the 
instruction  which  they  should  receive  in  the  church.  In  every  com- 
munity there  are  elements  of  great  moment  to  each  citizen  which  yet 
do  not  come  exactly  within  the  sphere  of  any  one  man's  duty.  There 
are  besides  the  things  Avhich  each  man  docs  for  himself,  and  within 
his  own  house,  and  within*liis  own  grounds,  many  things  which  are 
common  to  all ;  and  the  right-doing  of  things  which  are  common  to 
all,  is  what  we  mean  by  public  spirit. 

Now,  every  man  should  cheerfully  and  gratefully — not  grudg 

ino-'y work  for  the  community  in  which  he  lives.     It  is  a  shame  for 

a  man  to  have  a  good  farm  and  a  bad  road  in  front  of  it.  It  is  a 
shame  for  a  rvdn  to  have  beautiful  grounds  and  an  opaque  fence  sur- 
roundin'>-  them.  It  is  a  shame  for  a  man  to  stay  at  home  and  rear 
his  own  prosperity  there,  and  encircle  himself  with  beauty  and 
affluence,  saying,  "  I  am  provided  for,  and  I  do  not  care  for  others. 
Thino-s  may  go  up  or  down,  for  all  of  me,  I  am  independent  of  the 
town  in  which  I  live."  You  are  a  part  of  it  ;  and  it  belongs  to  you 
to  help  build  it  up,  and  not  to  build  up  yourself  within  your  OAvn 
lines  exclusively.  There  are  many  persons  who  feel  that  what  the 
town  o-ets  from  them  is  so  much  that  they  have  lost.  It  is  not  so.  It 
is  so  much  that  they  have  gained,  rather.  There  are  many  men  who 
are  apparently  so  selfish  and  so  self-seeking  and  so  centripetal  that 
they  begrudge  their  taxes,  the  service  that  they  are  called  upon  to 
render  in  the  working  of  the  roads,  and  every  thing  that  they  do,  or 
have  to  do,  for  the  public.  I  think  that  they  are  mad  when  they  see 
their  neio-hbors'  bees  going  ofi"  thigh-loaded  from  their  flowers.  I 
think  that  if  they  could,  they  would  conceal  the  perfume  from  their 
grape-vines  in  summer  when  they  are  in  blSssom,  so  inclined  are 
they  to  shirk  from  doing  anything  for  the  welfare  of  others. 

It  is  the  business  of  every  man  to  see  to  it  that  the  whole  neigh- 
borhood or  community  in  which  he  dwells  is  wholesome.  Is  there 
malaria  springing  from  some  undrained  morass  in  the  neighborhood? 
All  the  people  should  come  together,  according  to  their  several 
abilities,  and  take  hold  of  hands,  and  labor'as  one  man  to  secure  the 
general  health.  And  if  a  man  is  lifted  up  on  some  hill  so  that  he  is 
beyond  the  reach  of  danger,  it  is  a  shame  for  him  to  say,  "  The  air 
is  pure  here  ;  it  is  healthy  here :  if  you  down  there  are  sick  from 
malaria,  drain  your  own    swamps.     Why  should  I  drain  them?" 


CABi:  FOB  0THEB8.  407 

Because,  you  ought  to  work  for  the  public  good  as  well  as  for  your 
own.  A  man  who  dwells  upon  a  hill,  and  will  not  go  down  and  help 
his  neighbors  under  such  circumstances,  is  not  half  a  man — and  it  is 
the  Avorst  half,  at  that.  There  are  men  who  see  travelers  go  past 
their  premises  day  after  day,  weary  and  Avorn  ;  and  yet  they  will 
not  spend  five  dollars  to  set  out  shade  trees  on  either  side  of  the 
road.  They  say,  "  If  travelers  want  shade-trees,  let  them  set  them 
out  themselves."  It  would  be  a  revolution  for  rich  men  to  propose 
a  park,  or  a  common  ground,  for  the  people  at  large.  The  rich  man 
says,  "  I  have  all  the  grounds  that  I  want."  Well,  provide  grounds 
for  the  poor,  then.  "  Oh  !  The  poor  must  take  care  of  themselves.  I 
am  not  going  to  take  care  of  all  the  poor  in  the  community." 

People  disown  their  obligations  to  the  commonwealtli ;  and  yet, 
they  are  just  as  important,  and  they  are  just  as  binding,  and  they  are 
on  a  higher  plane,  or  in  a  higher  sphere,  than  their  obligations 
to  themselves.  I  have  justified  you,  I  have  defended  you  in  taking 
care  of  yourselves  ;  and  now  I  charge  upon  you,  also,  that  you  are 
just  as  much  bound,  with  a  higher  moral  obligation  (that  is,  with  an 
obligation  which  is  higher  in  quality),  to  take  care  of  others  as  well 
as  yourselves. 

It  is  a  shame  for  a  village  to  be  treeless,  and  to  be  without 
ample  accommodations  both  for  foot-passengers  and  for  beasts.  It 
is  a  shame  for  a  village  to  let  stinginess  pi-event  the  securing  of 
ample  supplies  of  water  for  all.  They  that  are  best  off  in  regard  to 
all  the  conditions  which  are  required  for  health  in  a  community 
should  be  first  and  foremost  in  providing  them  for  the  whole  com- 
munity. God  has  raised  them  up,  and  taken  the  necessity  of  these 
things  from  them.  Let  them,  therefore,  with  a  large  disintere.  teJ- 
ness,  secure  them  to  those  who  need  them. 

I  recollect  the  story  of  a  man  Avho  spent  his  whole  life  in  making 
money  for  the  sake  of  doing  good  with  it.  1  admire  his  noble  am- 
bition, but  I  do  not  justify  the  mode  which  he  ad  ipted  for  carrying 
it  out.  He  was  very  industrious,  and  amassed  a  great  deal  of  money. 
lie  had  the  reputation  of  being  avai-icious  and  stingy.  And  yet, 
when  he  died  it  was  found  that  his  whole  life  had  been  dedicated  to 
accumulating  property  that  he  might  build  an  acqueduct  that  should 
bear  the  water  of  a  stream  from  a  distant  mountain,  and  empty  it 
for  evermore  into  a  fountain  in  a  village,  so  that  the  poor,  who  had 
always  suffered  from  lack  of  water,  should  be  supplied  with  it.  And 
then  he  became  a  benefactor.  And  after  his  death  people  cried  who 
had  cursed  him  while  living. 

Every  man  is  to  be  praised  for  performing  a  generous  act ;  but 
no  man  has  a  right  to  do  a  good  thing  in  a  stingy  and  ugly  way. 


408  SELF-GABE,  AND 

This  man  was  not  justified  in  the  course  he  pursued  ;  but  to  devote 
his  whole  life  to  procuring  the  means  of  supplying  the  wants  of 
future  generations  was  a  noble  thing  in  him. 

In  general,  there  are  a  few  in  every  community  who  are  obliged 
to  do  the  things  which  are  for  the  common  good.  The  work  of  a 
church  is  done  by  a  dozen,  or  half-dozen.  They  work  excessively — • 
more  than  they  ought  to.  The  rest  all  lie  still  and  let  them.  That 
which  is  done  in  any  church,  if  distributed  evenly  among  the  mem- 
bers according  to  their  several  capacities  and  measures,  would  be 
light  upon  all.  Yea,  it  might  be  multiplied  four-fold  and  yet  be  light 
upon  all.  The  money  which  is  given  m  this  church  for  charitable 
purposes,  if  divided  among  all  that  are  here,  in  proportion  to  their 
means,  would  scarcely  be  recognized  or  felt.  It  might  be  doubled 
and  quintupled,  and  still  it  would  not  be  felt,  if  the  burden  were 
evenly  distributed — if  men  felt  that  they  were  under  obligation,  not 
simply  to  take  care  of  themselves,  but  to  take  care  of  others  also,  as 
a  part  of  their  duty  to  God  and  to  hu-nanity. 

Hence,  not  only  the  wickedness  bat  the  folly  of  men  who  grudge 
contributions  to  the  public.  I  do  not  know  as  I  ought  to  speak  on 
this  subject,  because  it  will  really  hit  the  sins  of  people  in  Brook- 
lyn !  There  are,  I  am  told,  men  in  Brooklyn  who  do  not  like  to  pay 
their  taxes.  I  am  told  that  they  evade.  I  am  told  that  they  pay 
their  taxes  very  grudgingly.  I  am  told  that  they  hide  property.  I 
am  told  that  they  depreciate  the  value  of  property  in  the  eyes  ot 
those  who  are  to  assess  them.  I  am  told  that  they  even  tell  lies — 
which  I  cannot  believe !  But  there  are  men  who  make  it  a  study 
how  to  get  their  shoulder  out  from  under  that  part  of  the  burden 
which  consists  in  caring  for  the  community.  If  a  man  could  justify 
■  himself  for  this  by  a  sufficient  reason,  there  might  be  some  extenua- 
tion ;  but  there  is  no  such  reason.  A  man  may  say,  "  I  do  not  think 
it  right  for  me  to  pay  for  all  the  rumshops  that  exist  throughout 
the  community.  I  do  not  think  that  I  ought  to  be  taxed  for  gambling- 
saloons,  and  all  manner  of  license,  and  vice,  and  crime.  I  do  not 
think  that  I,  who  am  a  hard-working,  painstaking,  virtuous  man, 
and  a  member  of  the  church  withal,  ought  to  bear  the  burden  of  this 
great  debt  which  is  caused  by  bad  men."  But  that  is  the  law  of  life, 
and  always  has  been,  and  always  will  be.  Good  folks  have  to  pay 
for  the  wrongs  committed  by  the  bad.  Therefoi-e,  a  man  cannot 
justify  himself  on  that  ground.  A  man  might  say,  "  I  would  pay  my 
taxes  cheerfully  if  I  thought  that  what  I  paid  went  to  benefit  the 
community ;  but  when  I  think  that  the  greatest  portion  of  it  goes  to 
feed  a  parcel  of  base  cormorants,  I  do  begrudge  it."  Well,  I  give  it 
up :  that  is  a  justifying  reason.     If  I  thought  that  every  gold  arrow 


CABE  FOB  0THEB8.  409 

that  I  shot  hit  the  mark,  I  would  be  willing  to  shoot  many  out  of 
my  quiver ;  but  when  I  think  that  about  five  parts  out  of  ten  go  to 
feed  stealing-  selfishness,  I  myself  grumble  a  little,  and  feel  that  it  is 
rather  hard.  I  curse  that  selfishness  which  is  perpetually  making 
good  men,  even,  unwilling  to  be  public-spirited.  I  denounce  that 
whole  system  of  laxity  of  conscience,  in  the  administration  of  the 
affairs  in  the  community,  which  men  practice,  and  which  you  tolerate 
ahnost  without  murmur  or  reproach,  and  which  acts  back  upon  the 
whole  moral  sense,  and  leaves  men  still,  like  moths,  to  cut  the  thread 
of  the  commonwealth. 

One  of  the  abominations  of  public  dishonesties  is,  not  so  much 
tliat  they  take  away  money,  as  that  they  take  away  manliood ;  as 
that  they  take  away  conscience ;  as  that  they  take  away  public  spirit, 
and  quash  and  destroy  it. 

The  curse  of  charity,  to-day,  at  my  door,  is  that  I  think  every 
other  man,  yes,  that  four  out  of  five,  are  impostors.  My  hand  docs 
not  want  to  go  out  as  once  it  did,  because  so  much  of  charity  is  but 
paying  a  premium  on  vice  and  impudence. 

The  curse  of  public-spiritedness  is  that  men  do  not  believe  that 
the  money  wliich  they  pay  for  taxes,  and  for  charity  itself,  goes  to 
make  the  park  beautiful,  or  the  streets  light,  or  the  sewers  whole- 
some, or  the  community  wise  and  good  and  strong,  in  schools  and 
other  civic  institutions.  But  you,  and  I,  and  everybody,  owe  it  to 
ourselves  not  to  draw  back  from  our  duty.  It  is  better  to  give  a 
thousand  dollars  where  only  five  hundred  are  due,  than  to  form  an 
intense  selfishness  which  shall  lead  you  to  say,  ''  Let  the  community 
go  :  I  will  take  care  of  myself." 

3.  This  subject  should  also  be  applied  to  the  sections  of  the  coun- 
try in  which  we  live.  The  necessity  is  beginning  to  appear.  It  has 
shown  itself  already  in  certain  ways  so  distinctly  as  to  make  it  a  mat- 
ter for  Christian  instruction.  There  needs  to  be  instruction  respecting 
it  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  this  land,  there  is  such  a  vast 
range  of  it,  present  and  jDrospective,  For,  without  doubt,  a  mighty 
stream  shall  overflow  our  banks,  and  the  coixntry  shall  extend  from 
the  Pacific  to  the  Atlantic,  and  from  the  extreme  North  to  the  ex- 
treme South.  And  with  such  diversity  of  climate,  and  such  diversity 
of  resources,  it  is  better  fitted  by  its  conditions  for  intercommunion 
and  reciprocity  than  almost  any  other  country.  And  yet,  if  men 
mistake,  and  are  narrow-minded,  there  will  spring  up  sectional  self- 
ishness, and  sectional  conflicts. 

Now,  the  pros))erity  of  the  whole  nation  is  a  benefit  to  every 
several  part  of  the  nation.  You  cannot  make  the  entire  people 
wise,  intelligent,   skillful,   strong,   brave  and  prosperous,   and   not 


410  8ELF-CABE,  AND 

make  every  section  of  the  nation,  whether  east,  west,  north  or  south, 
more  intelligent,  more  skillful,  stronger,  better,  and  wiser.  Old  New 
England,  when  she  thinks  for  herself,  cannot  think  for  herself.  She 
thinks  for  every  thing  that  there  is  on  the  continent.  Whatever 
wise  law  she  makes  reverberates  to  the  very  Pacific.  Whatever 
noble  example  her  sons  set,  shines  throughout  all  the  land.  She 
cannot  act  for  herself:  she  acts  for  the  whole.  Whatever  is  done 
wisely  and  well  in  one  part,  is  a  benefit  to  all  the  parts.  To  build 
up  the  West  at  the  expense  of  the  East,  is  to  build  it  up  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  West,  by  and  by.  And  so  of  the  East.  When  you 
attempt  to  fortify  any  section  at  the  expense  of  any  other  section, 
you  cheat  yourself.  That  which  is  best  for  all,  will,  in  the  long  run, 
be  found  to  be  best  for  each  section.  Though  it  may  not  seem  so,  yet 
in  the  end  it  will  be  found  to  have  been  so. 

This  is  a  principle  that  is  radical  to  our  national  existence.  This 
is  a  feeling  that  should  be  cultivated  more  and  more.  It  should  be 
cultivated  more  in  the  family,  and  it  should  be  cultivated  moi-e  in 
the  church.  The  church,  like  the  family,  can  speak  and  act  disin- 
terestedly. Parties,  often,  are  tongue-tied  in  these  things.  Com- 
merce, while  it  is  generous  in  many  respects,  is  apt  to  be  narrow 
and  selfish  in  this  matter.  And  it  is  for  us  to  see  that  this  law  holds 
good  in  sections  of  the  nation. 

"  Look  not  every  man  on  his  own  things,  but  every  man  also  on  the 
the  things  of  others." 

New  England,  in  legislating  for  the  Atlantic  slope,  must  not 
think  of  the  Atlantic  slope  alone.  The  Southern  States  must  not 
legislate  and  work  for  the  Southern  States.  The  West  must  take 
care  of  the  West ;  but  in  taking  care  of  the  West  she  must  so  take 
care  of  it  that  others  shall  be  cared  for. 

"  Say  to  the  South— Give  up  thy  charge, 
And  keep  not  back,  O  North." 

Let  all  stand  together,  a  vast,  outspread  domain  of  free  and  in- 
tellio-ent  men,  inspired  by  the  true  Christian  spii-it  of  indomitable 
self-care  and  independence  ;  and  then  let  there  be  a  prolific,  wide- 
spread public  care  and  thought  for  the  commonwealth. 

4.  The  life  of  nations  proceeds  upon  modifications  of  the  same 
great  laws  which  govern  individuals.  It  takes  a  long  time  to  work 
out  results  in  national  life,  because  it  is  so  much  more  multitudinous 
than  any  individual  or  family  life.  But  at  length  precisely  the  game 
moral  laws  and  economic  laws  which  govern  on  the  great  scale,  must 
o-overn  on  the  individual  scale.  Nations,  I  think,  are  to  treat  each 
other  as  individuals  treat  each  other.  Precisely  the  same  law  of 
obligation  is  binding  upon  nations  that  is  binding  upon  individuals. 
Let  each  one  take  care  of  himself;  but  let  him  do  it  so  as  all  the 


CABE  FOB  OTHERS.  411 

time  to  accuraulate  strength  by  which  to  extend  something  of  sym- 
pathy and  help  to  those  around  about.  The  law  of  nations  should 
be  a  law  of  interaction  and  service. 

How  well  they  pick  their  banners  !  Our  banner — what  is  it  ? 
The  ugliest  bird  of  prey  that  flies  in  the  air.  We  have,  to  signify 
our  moral  qualities,  rapacity  built  on  power.  The  nation  from  which 
we  descended  have  for  their  banner,  on  a  bloody  field,  a  rampant 
lion — the  ugliest  beast  of  the  forest,  that  steals  between  day  and 
night  to  eat  all  that  is  not  too  strong  for  him.  Other  nations  have 
double-headed  eagles,  and  others  thistles.  It  is  sought  to  express 
the  aptitudes  of  nations  by  some  animal  of  forceful,  cruel,  rapacious 
instinct  or  aptitude  ! 

National  life  should  be  benevolent  life.  And  there  is  a  sym- 
pathetic impulse  growing  up  in  nations  one  toward  another.  The 
whole  round  world  is  coming  nearer  to  every  part  of  itself.  Eacih 
part  is  coming  nearer  to  every  other  part.  The  long  voyages 
which  once  separated  us  have  ceased.  Knowledge  is  traveling  faster 
than  once  it  did.  There  is  intercommunion  by  electric  wires  which 
run  round  the  globe.  So  that  we  are  near  neighbors  ;  and  the  earth 
is  hardly  larger  than  the  page  of  a  book  as  compared  with  what  it 
was  a  hundred  years  ago.  And  this  law,  which  Ave  could  scarcely 
feel  when  we  were  so  widely  separated,  now,  within  hardly  a  life- 
time, has  come  to  be  felt.  Organizations  are  so  complete,  and  inter- 
communication is  so  rapid,  that  we  are  obliged  to  think,  and  the 
strong  nations  of  the  earth  must  ere  long  think,  what  is  to  become 
of  the  weak  nations. 

Because  you  are  built  up  by  Christianity,  have  you  a  right  to  bo 
more  savage  than  heathenism?  Because  y.ur  industry  needs  the 
help  of  Oriental  nations,  have  you  a  right  to  tread  them  out  ?  Have 
they  no  rights  which  you  are  bound  to  respect,  because  God  has 
made  you  more  strong  and  prosperous  than  they  ?  Where  came 
this  prosperity  and  this  strength  that  is  made  the  argument  of  op- 
pression ? 

By  as  much  as  we  are  superior  to  the  weak  nations  around  us,  by 
so  much  we  owe  to  them  our  sympathy  and  aid.  It  is  a  poor 
employment  of  civilization  that  makes  men  more  severe,  more  cruel, 
more  destroying.  And  yet,  where  does  the  edge  of  a  civilized  nation 
touch  upon  a  poor  peopk — some  Indian  tribe,  or  sonae  uneducated 
nation — that  it  does  not  corrode  ? 

Nations  are  first  to  secure  their  own  autonomy,  and  then  they 
are,  in  their  prosperity,  to  reach  out  kindly  hands,  and  extend  pros- 
perity to  those  around  about  them.  For,  as  in  a  neighborhood,  the 
prosperity  of  the  family  depends  upon  the  general  prosperity  ;  as  in 


412  8FLF-CAUE,  AND 

a  nation  the  prosperity  of  each  section  depends  upon  the  p:03- 
perity  of  the  whole  commonwealth  ;  so  the  prosperity  of  each  nation 
on  the  globe  depends  in  part  upon  the  prosperity  of  the  nations 
which  surround  it.  That  spirit  by  which  we  seek  to  build  ourselves 
up  by  pulling  down  another  nation ;  that  spirit  of  fierce  rivalry 
which  means  destruction  to  the  weaker  party,  is  contrary  to  the 
Gospel  spirit  and  to  political  economy. 

When  the  time  comes  that  nations  shall  make  war  no  more ; 
when  the  time  comes  that  men  shall  regard  their  neighbors,  not  as 
natural  enemies,  but  as  brethren ;  when  the  time  comes  that  the 
whole  population  of  society  is  free  and  intelligent ;  when  the  man  of 
the  loom,  and  the  man  of  the  plow,  and  the  man  of  the  hammer  and 
the  ax  and  the  saw,  shall  have  an  interest  in  the  public  welfare  and 
policy ;  when  the  common  people  shall  speak,  and  not  dynasties,  and 
not  narrow  classes — then  we  may  believe  that  nations  will  be  reluc- 
tant to  go  to  war  against  nations ;  and  that  wealth,  like  a  kindly 
stream  of  sympathy  will  flow  like  a  river  of  God  through  the  earth, 
and  that  men  will  rejoice  to  build  up  all  their  fellow-men,  diiferently 
named  though  they  be,  though  they  speak  ditfereut  languages,  and 
though  they  be  far  from  them. 

And  this  time  is  drawing  nearer  and  nearer.  The  providence  of 
God  is  pointing  and  traveling  in  that  direction.  Even  in  my  life- 
time a  new  leaf  has  been  turned  over.  Once  nations  fought,  and 
neighboring  nations  stood  and  looked  on,  and  were  as  little  affected 
as  brutal  gamblers  are  while  standing  and  looking  on  at  a  cock-fight 
or  a  bull-fight.  But  nations  have  changed  in  that  regard.  A  new 
feeling  is  at  work  in  the  affairs  of  men.  There  is  a  better  and  a 
diviner  feeling  moving  among  nations.  All  nations  are  beginning 
to  pity  nations  that  are  in  distress.  Do  we  hear  that  even  in  China 
there  is  starvation  ?  Though  they  are  so  far  away,  our  heart  begins 
to  move  toward  that  nation.  Do  we  hear  that  in  any  distant  part  of 
the  earth  some  huge  famine,  some  terrific  pestilence,  some  devastat- 
ing freshet  has  swept  whole  neighborhoods  into  poverty  and  misery  ? 
Succor  begins  to  flow  first  from  those  nearest,  and  then  from  those 
more  remote,  in  due  order.  Among  the  hither  ward  nations — those 
with  whom  we  are  more  in  contiguity,  and  whose  sympathy  is  with 
ovxrs — ^kindly  oflices  have  ceased  to  be  exceptional  things.  When 
Ireland  hungered,  America  fed  her,  as  did  Great  Britain,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  water.  When  Europe,  in  any  of  her  members,  suffers, 
all  the  rest  of  Europe  is  attent,  and  listens  to  the  cry  that  comes  up 
from  the  suffering. 

To-day,  what  do  we  behold  ?  Fifty  years  ago,  and  a  little  more, 
that  great,  proud,  ruthless  and  unprincipled  hero,  Napoleon,  brouglit 


CABE  FOB  OTHEBS.  413 

down  on  the  Germans  famine,  poverty  and  suffering,  at  Berlin ;  and 
to-day,  in  consonance  with  that  retribution  which  goes  Avith  nations 
as  with  individuals,  "William  stands  treading  down  France,  sovereign, 
imperial ;  and  all  his  path  smokes.  The  fires  ascend  from  hamlets 
and  from  villages.  And  now,  again,  as  in  all  the  rest  of  the  history 
of  the  world,  the  great  men  commit  the  crimes,  and  the  innocent  suf- 
fer the  penalties.  Not  they  that  legislate  ambitiously  are  the  suiFer- 
ers.  Not  they  that  carry  on  the  war,  but  the  peasant,  the  helpless 
mother  and  wife,  the  little  children,  go  without  bread  and  go  with 
tattered  raiment,  and  die  in  the  very  heart  of  beautiful  France. 
Hollow-hearted  corruption  has  sat  on  the  throne  and  warred  with 
Germany. 

I  adjudicate  in  the  case  of  neither  of  these  nations ;  but  if  one 
year  ago  I  had  been  asked  to  point  to  that  nation  whose  resources 
seemed  to  be  tho  most  ample,  and  whose  prosperity  seemed  to  be 
without  let  or  hindrance,  I  should  have  said,  "  France  is  the  strong- 
est— the  most  militarily  strong,  at  any  rate;"  and  God  lifted  his 
hand  and  smote  her,  and  behold  in  an  hour  she  is  desolate.  She  is 
absolutely  sitting  as  the  "  Daughter  of  Zion,"  upon  the  ground  di- 
sheveled, in  ashes,  and  in  utter  and  abject  humiliation.  The  shears  are 
already  cutting  off  her  territorial  kingdom  on  the  east.  Already  the 
tax-gatherer  is  collecting  her  wealth.  Already  famine  stalks  through 
her  cities  and  villages.  Her  great  men  are  scattered.  Her  citizens 
are  despoiled  and  wretched.  There  has  not  been,  in  your  age  nor 
in  mine,  nor  within  a  hundred  years,  a  spectacle  of  such  abject  suf- 
fering, brought  upon  so  large  a  people,  as  that  which  has  come  with 
this  tornado  of  war. 

Do  I  blame  Germany  ?  I  do  not.  She,  too,  is  a  sufferer.  There 
is  mourning  in  all  her  houses.  Multitudes  of  her  sons  go  back  no 
more.  Many  a  book  has  been  shiit  for  the  last  time  by  scholarly 
hands  in  Germany.  Many  a  one  that  was  drawing  God's  secrets 
from  among  the  stars  will  never  look  through  glass  again.  Her 
universities  are  emptied.  Her  noblest  sons  have  spilled  their  blood, 
as  our  noblest  sons  spilled  theirs  in  our  late  struggle,  and  have  met 
the  same  fate,  the  divine  beneficence  of  which  God  shall  by  and  by 
reveal  to  us.  But  though,  in  resisting  the  imperious  and  unjust 
aggressions  of  France,  she  suffers ;  yet,  as  the  scene  of  the  conflict  is 
on  the  fields  of  I'rance,  she  does  not  suffer  as  France  now  suffers. 
Her  wounded  are  in  beautiful  cities.  Her  granaries  are  full.  Her 
treasury  is  full.  Her  resources  are  organized.  Her  government  is 
competent  to  take  care  of  its  people.  Every  drop  of  our  old  Ger- 
manic blood  cries  out,  "  God  bless  our  father-land  !" 

But  there  is  a  voice  of  pity  and  of  sorrow  that  cries  out  "  God 


4 1 4  SULF- CABE,  AND 

Bparc  and  have  compassion  upon  poor  France."  The  prairies  lifted 
lap  their  hands  all  summer,  and  the  corn  grew,  and  we  knew  not 
M'hat  it  meant.  But  now  we  know  that  it  was  designed  to  be  an 
instrumi'ut  of  charity,  as  we  see  it  make  haste  to  depart  and  travel 
across  the  deep  to  feed  starving  mouths.  Our  orchards  and  our 
wheat-tields  yielded  abundant  harvests  last  year.  Our  anvils  and 
mills  sped  prosperously  last  year.  We  are  strong.  Our  hands  are 
full.    And  that  is  not  all — we  are  charitable. 

And  France — she  is  bone  of  our  bone,  and  blood  of  our  blood. 
On  many  a  southward  field  sleep  heroes  born  on  French  soil,  who 
laid  down  their  lives  to  achieve  our  independence.  The  name  of 
Lafayette  is  sacred.  It  is  second  to  no  other  than  that  of  Washing- 
ton itself.  We  are  bound  to  France  by  the  ties  which  bind  all  nations 
one  to  another.  We  are  bound  to  France  by  that  great  law  of 
humanity,  which  forbids  that  we  see  suffering  without  making 
haste  to  relieve  it.  We  are  bound  to  France  by  the  memory  of 
the  services  Avhich  she  rendered  to  us  in  the  hour  of  our  ex- 
tremest  need.  She  heard  our  b'rth-cry  ;  she  took  us  up  when  we 
were  weak  and  helpless  ;  she  cleansed  us  ;  she  clothed  us ;  she  suckled 
us.  And  now  that  we  have  grown  strong,  and  she  is  crippled  and 
decrepit,  shall  we  hear  her  voice  imploring,  "  Come  over  and  help 
me  !"  and  not  heed  it?  No.  We  have  the  spirit  of  men  and  brethren, 
and  our  willing  hands  shall  give  a  response  to  this  cry. 

I  have  so  made  the  sermon  this  morning  that  I  might  bring  it 
out  to  this  issue  and  result.  I  have  been  requested,  as  all  the  clergy- 
men of  Brooklyn  have,  to  call  attention  to  the  want  of  France,  to 
make  mention  of  her  perishing  condition,  in  order  to  take  up  a  col- 
lection that  should  be  sent  as  a  testimony  of  our  sympathy  and  our 
beneficence  over  the  sea. 

You,  tliat  never  heard  a  cry  of  sufi*ering  in  vain ;  you,  that  in  old 
days,  when  your  names  were  a  by-word  and  a  hissing  at  the  South, 
sent  your  hundreds  and  thousands  of  dollars  to  relieve  the  distressed 
in  Norfolk  ;  you  that  sent  your  gold  to  the  people  of  Ncav  Orleans 
at  a  time  when  they  despised  you,  and  when  your  name  was  op- 
iirobrious — shall  you  be  wanting,  in  this  day,  and  in  a  more  welcome 
service  ?  Your  old  genorosity  I  believe  has  not  grown  lecrepit . 
and  I  believe  that  you  Avill  make  a  contribution  now,  I  ill  not  say 
that  is  worthy  of  your  name  (that  would  be  presenting  x  'ow  motive), 
but  that  is  worthy  of  our  humanity,  of  our  Christian  sympathy, 
and  of  our  sense  of  that  obligation  which  one  nation  owes  to  another. 


(UEJE  FOE  OTHERS.  4 1 5 

PRAYER   BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

We  thank  thee,  O  Lord  our  God !  that  through  the  pathle33  way,  iintrod, 
•without  mark,  thou  hast  so  often  taken  us  that  we  are  familiar  with  rhe  ro.id. 
"We  know  not  where  thou  art,  as  men  judge;  we  know  not  what  thou  art. 
In  part  we  kuow  thee  insomuch  as  we  have  sometliing  of  our  Father  in  us, 
and  the  child  that  is  in  us  cries  out  unto  thee;  and  yet,  thou  art  so  much  more 
than  that,  and  hast  so  much  in  tbyself  tliat  transcends  all  conception,  that 
by  searching  we  never  can  find  thee  out.  But  by  thy  power  thou  see;uest  to 
us  as  one  near  and  well  known.  And  thy  love  and  thy  grace  havs  made  us 
love  thee  again.  We  do  notsend  our  thoughts  as  flowers  send  their  fragra.!ice 
into  the  air  that  comes  not  back  unto  them.  We  do  not  send  our  thi>ught3 
out  to  wander.  We  commune — yea,  without  voice,  without  answer;  and  yet 
we  have  learned  to  feel  that  thou  art  near  to  us,  and  that  we  ar^i  near  to 
thee.  There  is  something  that  thinks  of  us;  something  that  enfokls  us — 
though  not  by  an  arm  such  as  that  with  which  we  enfold  one  another.  Tiiine 
arm  is  creation.  Thy  thought  is  Providence.  Thy  heart  is  love.  How  does 
it  give  to  us  atmosphere  and  light  and  warmth!  And  because  tliou  art 
greater,  we  lose  thee.  Because  we  seek  to  reduce  thee  to  the  pro  )ortion  of 
our  own  form,  and  to  the  exigencies  of  our  narrowed  and  confiTted  life,  we 
do  not  realize  how  present  thou  art.  How  necessary  to  us  is  fhy  very  life! 
For  in  thee  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.  We  thank  thee  that  we 
have  learned  so  much.  Not  only  when  we  are  in  distress  do  we  oi'.l  unto 
thee;  not  only  when  all  our  own  strength  and  skill  fail,  do  we  send  forth  a 
vague  cry  for  help ;  but  in  the  watches  of  the  night,  and  in  the  solitary  times 
of  the  day — in  the  hours  when  the  earth  cannot  satisfy  us,  and  in  tlie  houi's 
when  it  does  satisfy  us.  In  times  of  joy;  iu  times  of  gratitude  ;  in  all  times 
of  peace  and  hope;  in  all  times  of  pain  and  sorrow,  thou  art  needed  by  us; 
and  we  feel  after  thee,  and  find  thee.  Sometimes  thou  art  seemingly  away; 
sometimes  thou  seemest  to  hide;  but  yet  we  are  in  thy  pavilion.  The  storm 
passes,  and  we  hear  its  terrible  steps ;  and  yet  there  we  are  protected,  and 
safe,  and  brought  forth  again  into  light.  And  we  have  learned  to  hide  our 
life  with  Christ  in  God.  And  we  dwell  not  unconscious  of  our  unworthi- 
uess.  Yea,  we  grow  more  and  more  conscious  of  our  unworthines3  as  we 
grow  in  days  and  years.  We  have  learned  to  experience  a  sweet  companion- 
ship with  thee ;  and  we  rejoice  in  thy  ineffable  grace.  We  commit  ourselves, 
dear  Father,  to  thy  paternal  care  to-day.  We  need  not  confess  our  si'i.  We 
open  our  life  before  thee;  and  thou  readest  it.  Even  as  outward  things 
are  discerned  by  the  stars  of  the  darkest  night,  so  thou  disceruest  the  most 
hidden  things  by  the  light  that  is  in  thee,  and  not  in  them.  And  we  rejoice 
that  thou  knowest  us  altogether.  Thou  wilt  not  therefore  be  surprised  at 
fresh  transgressions  ;  at  the  outbreaking  of  sin.  Thou  hast  taken  us  with  a 
knowledge  of  our  weakness,  and  with  a  full  knowledge  of  our  wickedness ; 
and  thou  knowest  how  we  shall  be  tempted,  and  how  we  shall  fall.  All 
things  are  naked  and  open  before  Him  with  whom  we  have  to  do.  And  so 
thou  hast  set  thy  seal  upon  thit  blessed  exhortation.  Come  thou  boldly  unto 
the  throne  of  grace,  that  thou  mayest  obtain  mercy  and  find  grace  to  help  in 
time  of  need.  We  need  thee  to-day  We  used  thee  in  our  understandings. 
We  need  thee  in  our  affections.  We  need  thee  in  all  the  parts  and  passages 
of  our  life.  We  need  thee  at  home.  We  need  thee  by  the  wayside.  We  need 
thee  in  solitude,  and  in  thick  companies.  We  need  thee  in  the  sanctuary. 
We  need  thee  in  the  perplexities  of  our  daily  business,  and  iu  our  tempta- 
tions. We  need  thee  when  we  are  ill  at  ease.  We  need  thee  waking  or  sleep- 
ing. Everywhere  we  need  thee,  O,  thou  Spirit  of  love,  and  of  providence, 
and  of  care!  And  we  commit  ourselves  now  to  thine  hands,  wi  hout  condi- 
tion.   We  run  to  thee  as  children  run  to  us,  not  stopping  to  ask  why,  but 


416  SELF-CAUE,  AND  CABE  FOB  OTHERS. 

drawn.  And  we  rejoice  that  thou  wilt  not  put  any  away,  nor  let  them  count 
their  worth.  Thou  wilt  measure  thy  kindnesses  according  to  the  multitude 
of  thy  tender  mercies,  and  not  according  to  their  deserts. 

And  now,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  draw  to  thyself,  by  thy  love  and  good- 
ness, those  that  have  been  so  far  from  thee,  and  that  are  so  far  from  thee, 
Awakeu  a  new  life  in  all  that  are  in  darkness.  Give  a  heavenly  life  to  those 
who  have  betn'  ministered  unto  thus  far  by  earthly  influences.  We  pray 
that  there  may  be  many  that  shall  heartily  renounce  their  sins  and  overcome 
them.  And  may  many  break  forth  into  songs.  And  may  their  voices  be  as 
the  voice  of  spring.  May  we  hear  the  sound  of  birds  that  sing  once  more, 
saying.  Spring  hath  come  again.  May  we  hear  vocal  joy  on  every  hand. 
May  we  hear  from  those  who  pray  in  silence  and  in  secret.  May  we  hear 
from  those  who  pray  in  their  households.  May  we  hear  from  those  who 
gather  together,  two  or  three  in  thy  name.  May  they  have  thee  in  their 
midst.  May  we  hear  from  those  who  go  forth  to  teach  the  poor,  and  to 
relieve  the  suffering,  and  to  minister  to  the  sick  and  to  the  dymg.  Grant,  O 
Lord  our  God!  that  they  may  be  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost.  May  they  bear 
the  very  spirit  of  their  Master  with  them.  May  they  go  forth  even  with 
tears,  sowing  seed  in  strange  places ;  and  may  they  come  continually  with 
joy,  having  their  bosom  filled  with  sheaves!  May  all  this  Church  be  a 
Church  of  ministering  spirits.  May  it  have  in  each  one  a  servant  faithful  in 
his  sphere.  I^Iay  we  be  up  and  doing  the  things  which  our  hands  find  to  do, 
watching  and  waiting  for  the  coming  of  Christ.  We  know  not  when  he  will 
come— whether  at  morning,  at  nooo,  at  night,  or  at  midnight.  Therefore 
may  we  always  be  ready,  having  our  harness  on.  May  wj  be  found  work- 
ing whenever  the  Master  shall  come.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  the  poor, 
and  comfort  them  in  their  straightened  circumstances.  Open  the  hearts  of 
those  around  about  them,  to  give  them  sympathy  and  succor.  And  we  pray 
for  all  that  are  rich,  that  they  may  not  put  their  heart  in  their  riches,  nor 
grow  vain  nor  proud,  nor  avaricious.    May  they  be  rich  in  good  works. 

We  pray  for  all  those  that  are  in  the  perplexities  and  trials  of  bvisiness. 
Give  them  a  happy  issue  from  their  trouble,  and  overrule  alJ  things  in  thy 
providence  for  their  spiritual  as  well  as  their  temporal  good. 

Bless  the  young.  May  they  make  for  themselves  the  highest  conception 
of  manhood;  and  may  they  seek,  with  noble  ardor,  to  be  Ijetter,  more 
strong,  and  more  fruitful  in  good  than  those  who  have  gone  before  them. 

And  we  pray  for  the  old.  As  their  feet  are  beginning  to  tread  less  and 
less  strongly,  and  as  they  are  coming  near  to  the  bordevs  of  this  land,  may 
they  find  that  they  are  drawing  near  to  the  borders  of  the  other  land  of 
hope  and  truth  and  immortality. 

We  pray,  O  God !  that  thou  wilt  bless  the  sick,  and  be  with  them  this  dav, 
in  their  chambers.  Bear  to  them  the  music  and  the  prayer  and  all  the  ser- 
vice of  devotion  in  the  sanctuary,  by  thy  Spirit.  May  they  sing  in  hean  ; 
and  may  they  find  their  way  toward  God.  Prepare  those  who  are  appointed 
unto  death  for  a  sv/eet  deliverance  from  care  and  trouble,  and  for  a  joyful 
entrance  into  thy  heavenly  kingdom. 

And  we  pray  for  all  this  land.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  educa- 
tion may  go  forth  everywhere,  preparing  the  way  for  tlie  Gospel.  And 
everywhere  may  the  Gospel  raise  men  in  intelligence,  and  in  true  knowl- 
edge, and  in  virtue,  and  in  piety. 

Bless  the  nations  of  the  earth ;  and  grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  speedily  they 
may  be  lifted  up  so  high  that  men  shall  not  be  able  any  longer  to  oppress 
men.  And  grant  that  truth,  knowledge  and  manhood  may  become  so  strong 
that  the  nations  shall  secure  peace  in  the  fear  of  God.  And  we  pray  that 
wars  and  famine  and  pestilence  may  be  things  of  the  past.  Even  so.  Lord 
Jesus,  come  quickly.  Hast  thou  not  promised?  Wilt  thou  not  perform? 
Thou  that  hast  administered  from  age  to  age  as  if  the  life  of  man  were  a 
very  little  thing  with  thee,  oh!  delay  not  too  long,  hide  not  the  counsels  of 
thy  mercies  too  long,  lest  the  hearts  of  men  grow  weary  with  waiting.  Come, 
O,  thou  Prince  of  peace!  O,  thou  that  bringest  joyful  tidings!— come,  and 
command  the  nations  that  they  rest,  and  give  occasion  to  none  to  say  to  his 
neighbor.  Know  ye  the  Lord?  May  all  know  thee  from  the  greatest  unto 
the  least.  And  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  ever- 
lasting.   Amen. 


XXV. 

Labor  and  Harvest. 


INVOCATION. 

Vouchsafe  to  us  :>ur  heavenly  Father,  thy  benediction ;  and  do  not  grant 
it  outwardly  alone:  but  may  we  have  the  witness  in  our  hearts  that  we  are 
thine,  and  that  we  are  spoken  to  this  day.  May  all  that  is  of  good  in  us  rise 
up  to  mset  thee.  May  our  joy  take  hold  by  faith  upon  thy  promises.  May 
every  fear  be  calmed.  May  every  trouble  be  exorcised.  May  every  tempta- 
tion fall  down  befor«  the  brightness  of  thy  face.  May  we  rest,  to-day,  in 
thee.  And  may  the  service  of  instruction,  of  devotion,  and  all  the  occupa- 
tion of  the  day,  be  acceptable  in  thy  sight,  O  Lord,  our  Redeemer.    Amen, 

25 


LABOR  AND  HARVEST. 


I  propose,  this  morning,  to  follow  the  tenor  of  the  Scripture  which 
I  read  in  your  hearing  as  a  part  of  the  opening  service.  It  is 
remarkable  in  one  respect,  as  being  more  nearly  a  connected  view 
of  a  day  in  Christ's  life  than  we  are  accustomed  to  find  in  the 
Gospel  narratives.  For  we  are  to  remember  that  those  literary  de- 
vices which  have  become  so  familiar  that  a  child  understands  them 
in  our  day,  vi  ere  quite  unknown  to  the  simple  and  humble  recorders 
of  the  life  of  Christ.  No  one  would  think,  now,  of  writing  a  jDcrson's 
life  without  having  regard  to  the  element  of  time — without  record- 
ing events  in  the  order  in  which  they  occurred,  and  in  their  prob- 
able relation  or  juxtaposition  to  each  other.  But  while  there  is  a 
sort  of  regard  in  the  narratives  of  the  evangelists  to  chronology, 
there  cannot  be  a  doubt  that  events  are  frequently  grouped  in  such 
a  way  that  all  thought  of  time  is  lost,  so  that  we  cannot  tell  whether 
a  given  parable  was  spoken  early  or  late,  or  where  five  or  six  para- 
bles are  recorded  in  one  chapter,  whether  all  of  them  were  spoken  at 
one  time,  or  whether  they  were  picked  up  like  pearls  and  strung  to- 
gether. 

Now  and  then  we  have  what  we  may  call  an  interior.  A  sort  of 
window  or  door  opens,  through  which  we  may  look  in ;  and  we  see 
a  scene  in  its  inception,  in  its  development,  and  in  its  termination. 
It  is  organized,  as  it  were,  in  itself,  so  that  we  see  it  perfectly,  just 
as  if  we  were  on  the  spot  at  the  time  of  its  occurrence.  And  such  I 
think  is  the  scene,  a  description  of  which  I  have  read  in  your  hearing. 
It  took  place  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  year  of  the  Saviour's 
ministry — the  main,  the  harvest  year.  He  was  in  Galilee.  He  had 
been  working  many  miracles ;  he  had  been  delivering  many  dis- 
courses ;  he  had  made  one  or  two  circuits  throughout  Galilee,  preach- 
ing in  the  cities  and  villages.  All  the  great  cities  around  the  edge 
of  the  Lake  of  Galilee  had  witnessed  his  power.  Capernaum,  which 
had  become  his  home  after  he  was  rejected  from  Nazareth,  his 
childhood  home,  became  his  headquarters  during  all  the  rest  of 
his  ministry.  He  had  just  delivered  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
The  next  event  recorded  in  liis  history  was  the  working  of 
a  miracle — the  raising  to  life  of  the  widow's  son  at  Nain.     That, 

Sunday  MORNTNG,  Feb.  26, 1871.  Lesson:  Luke "VII.,  11-35.    Hymns  (Plymouth  Col- 
lection): Nos.  269,  717,  755. 


418  LABOR  AND  HARVEST. 

joined  to  a'l  the  other  things  wliich  he  did,  had  given  a  new  im- 
pulse to  hi'i  fame  The  common  people  were  enthusiastic  over  him. 
There  was  qo  drawback  in  their  case.  And  although  the  Pharisees 
had  begiin  to  find  occasion  for  bitter  dislike,  they  had  not  yet 
tliought  it  meet  to  break  with  him  openly.  There  were  some  secret 
councils  a^^ainst  him,  but  they  had  not  assumed  much  importance 
outwardly ;  and  so,  it  may  be  said  that  he  stood  at  the  height  of  his 
popularity  at  that  time.  And  he  was  followed  and  believed  in  by  the 
great  m^ass  of  the  common  people.  They  believed  in  Aim,  even  if 
they  did  not  believe  in  his  doctrine.  And  he  was  not  yet  openly 
opposed  by  the  ruling  forces  of  society. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  John,  the  old  lion-heart,  was  cooped  up 
in  a  prison — in  the  castle  of  Machserus,  on  the  east  side  of  the  Dead 
Sea — one  of  those  old  castles  made  in  times  of  war,  perched  high  up 
on  a  cliff,  and  looking  into  a  deep  and  dark  gorge  through  which  a 
stream  ran  from  the  eastern  mountains  into  the  Dead  Sea.  Afar  off, 
he  heard  of  the  fame  of  this  preacher.  He  had  himself  been  shut 
up.  His  work  seemed  to  have  come  to  an  end.  We  have  not  a  single 
syllable  as  to  the  man's  history ;  but  he  lay  in  that  dark  prison. 
We  know  the  history  of  the  termination  of  his  witness  and  life;  but 
of  what  he  thought  and  how  he  felt  there  is  no  record,  except  this 
little  gleam.  As  it  were,  against  the  walls  of  this  great  castle  there 
came  echoes  of  the  miracles  and  wonders  of  Christ,  and  of  the  en- 
thusiasm of  the  people  which  he  was  exciting  in  Galilee.  These 
echoes  had  stirred  John  up  to  know  whether  the  man  who  Avas  doing 
these  things  was  that  man  of  whom  he  had  been  taught  that  he  was 
the  forerunner.  And  so  he  sent  forth  some  of  his  disciples — who,  it 
seems,  were  allowed  access  to  him.  They  came  to  Christ  in  Galilee, 
and  said, 

"  John  Baptist  hath  sent  us  unto  thee,  saying,  Art  thou  he  that  s'jould 
come  [art  thou  the  prophet  that  was  expected]  ?  or  look  we  [waiting  and 
watching]  for  another  ?" 

Now,  it  would  seem  to  us  as  though  the  Saviour  might  have 
said,  at  once,  "  I  am  he,"  but  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that,  up  to 
this  time,  our  Saviour  had  not  declared  himself  to  be  the  Messiah. 
If  he  had  done  it  to  his  disciples,  it  was  privately.  In  public  he 
had  not  even  taken  upon  himself  the  name  of  the  Son  of  God.  He 
called  himself  the  Son  of  Man.  He  appeared  to  the  people,  and 
for  aught  that  he  had  said  or  done,  they  had  a  right  to  suppose  that 
lie  was  simply  a  Jewish  prophet ;  and  that  was  the  testimony  which 
went  out  in  respect  to  him.  That  was  what  the  common  people  said 
of  him. 

"  And  there  came  a  fear  on  all ;  and  they  glorified  God,  saying,  That  a 
great  prophet  is  risen  up  among  us;  and,  That  God  hath  visited  his 
people." 


LABOR  AND  HARVEST.  419 

When  John  sent  his  disciples,  therefore,  to  ask  whether  Christ  was 
tlie  Messiah  (for  that  is  the  purport  of  the  question),  we  should  sup- 
pose that  he  would  have  replied,  at  least  confidentially,  to  his  faith- 
ful forerunner,  John,  saying,  "  Yes,  I  am  he ;"  but  instead  of  that, 
he  said, 

*'  Go  your  way,  and  tell  John  what  things  ye  have  seen." 

Wliat  things  had  they  seen  ?  It  seems  to  have  been  one  of  those 
fruitful  hours  in  the  Saviour's  history.  Clirist  was  not  fruitful  at  all 
times,  either  in  his  discourses  or  in  his  marvelous  works  ;  but  he  had 
periods  of  fruitfulncss ;  and  he  seems  then  to  have  stood  on  the  edge 
of  one  of  them.     It  is  recorded  : 

"In  thai  same  hour  he  cured  many  of  their  infirmities,  and  plagues,  and 
of  evil  spirits  ;  and  unto  many  that  were  blind  he  gave  sight." 

Instead  of  answering  categorically  the  question  put  to  him,  he 
said, 

"  Go  your  way,  and  tell  John  what  things  ye  have  seen  and  heard  ;  how 
thattlie  blind  see,  the  lame  walk,  the  lepers  are  cleansed,  the  deaf  hear,  the 
dual  are  raited,  to  the  poor  the  Gospel  is  preached." 

That  last  Avas  the  most  wonderful  stroke  of  the  whole  of  it. 
In  that  corrupt  and  oppressive  age,  in  that  unfeeling,  avaricious, 
grinding  country,  under  that  despotic  government,  humanity,  tak- 
ing care  of  the  poor,  was  the  most  astonishing  of  all.  Not  the 
raising  of  the  dead,  not  the  restoring  of  hearing  nor  sight,  Avas  so 
wonderful  as  that  there  should  be  a  heart  that  really  occupied  it- 
6c'f  with  thinking  oi  the  poor. 

"  To  the  poor  the  Gospel  is  preached.    And  blessed  is  he,  whosoever  shall 
not  be  offended  in  me." 

With  that  answer  the  messengers  retired. 

This  interview  seems  to  have  given  to  Christ  a  text  ;  for  he  took 
his  terxts  not  out  of  the  Old  Testament — except  those  for  synagogical 
days.  Those  he  did.  But  the  discourses  which  he  delivered  throuo-h 
the  week  were  discourses  that  sprang  from  some  incident  or  some 
history.  And  this  event  seems  to  have  given  him  a  text.  lie 
began  to  question  the  multitude  as  to  Avhy  it  was  that  they  were  in- 
terested in  John — knowing  that  they  were.  Looking  around  upon 
them,  he  said, 

"  What  went  ye  out  into  the  wilderness  for  to  see  ?  A  reed  shaken  with 
the  wind  ?" 

In  other  words,  "  Did  you  think  that  there  was  some  necroman- 
cer, some  mountebank,  some  deft,  dextrous  man,  that,  as  it  were, 
dazzled  your  eye,  as  it  is  dazzled  by  the  shaking  of  a  reed  that  stands 
weak  and  helpless  in  the  wind  ?  Did  you  go  out  to  see  a  man  that 
would  shake  before  you  with  some  spectacular  effect  that  liad  no 
validity  ?"  There  were  some  that  went  on  that  account,  un- 
doubtedly. 


420  LABOR  AND  HARVEST. 

"  What  went  ye  out  for  to  see  ?  A  man  clothed  in  soft  raiment?  Behold 
they  which  are  gorgeously  appareled,  and  live  delicately,  are  in  Kings' 
courts." 

It  was  as  if  he  had  said,  "  If  you  went  out  to  see  one  that  came 
in  all  the  circumstance  of  your  land,  as  a  prince,  gorgeously 
appareled,  and  with  all  the  insignia  of  wealth  and  power  upon  him, 
you  should  not  have  gone  down  to  the  wilderness  of  the  Jordan. 
That  is  not  the  place  in  which  such  men  would  appear.  You  should 
have  gone  to  cities. 

"  But  what  went  ye  out  for  to  see  ?  A  prophet  ?" 
There  was  no  bait  that  took  so  universally  as  a  prophet,  with  the 
people  of  Palestine.  They  would  run  for  that  when  they  would  not 
run  for  anything  else.  They  were  always  hoping  for  a  prophet.  They 
were  a  people  peculiarly  addicted  to  prophets.  Prophets  were  a  won- 
der. They  were  regarded  as  more  than  ordinary  men.  There  was 
nothing  that  whetted  curiosity  more.  There  was  nothing  that  the 
people  more  desired  to  have  among  them.  And  the  very  im- 
posters  assumed  to  be  prophets'  sons,  and  availed  themselves  of 
the  national  pride  and  faith  and  credulity. 

"  Yea,  I  say  unto  you,  and  much  more  than  a  prophet." 
And  now  he  enlarges  upon  John's  character.  He  eulogizes  him. 
He  also  measui-es  and  ranks  him.  I  do  not  think  that  we  can  follow 
and  sympathize  here.  We  are  obliged  to  take  the  declaration  at 
what  it  is  worth.  There  are  no  indications  by  which  we  can  set  a 
judgment  upon  the  life  and  deeds  of  John.     This  is  the  eulogy  : 

*'  I  say  unto  you,  Among  those  that  are  born  of  women  there  is  not  a 
greater  prophet  than  John  the  Baptist." 

When  you  recall  such  men  as  Samuel,  as  Elijah,  as  Elisha,  as 
Jeremiah,  as  Isaiah,  as  Ezekiel,  and  as  the  constellation  of  minor 
prophets,  and  when  you  recollect  what  deeds  they  performed,  it  seems 
very  strange  that  this  lone  preacher  in  the  wilderness  of  the  Jordan 
should  have  been  ranked  with  them,  and  preferred  before  them. 
Certainly,  he  never  was  occupied  with  any  such  events  of  history 
as  the  prophet  of  Ahab's  day  was.  Certainly,  he  was  not  concerned 
much  with  scenes  of  weird  and  dramatic  effect  as  the  old  prophets 
were.  Clothed  in  skins,  as  often  they  were  (I  suppose  that  if  we  had 
seen  Elijah  we  would  have  believed  him  to  be  a  Bedouin,  and  a  wild 
Bedouin  at  that — an  Arab)  ;  attired  in  the  costume  that  they  used  to 
•wear ;  bold  as  they  were  in  their  manners ;  coming  and  going  at  seasons 
unexpected  ;  appearing  and  disappearing  in  the  same  hour  ;  running 
on  foot,  and  outrunning  chariots  and  horsemen ;  having  that  peculi- 
arly wild  and  dramatic  character  which  belonged  to  the  Oriental; 
flashing  denunciations  before  the  people  ;  shaking  kings  upon  their 
thrones  j — certainly,  when  you  think  of  these  prophets,  there  seems  to 


LABOR  AND  HARVEST.  421 

be  nothing  to  justify  the  declaration  respecting  John  that  no  man 
born  of  woman  was  equal  to  him.  And  I  suppose  it  must  have  referred 
to  a  certain  grandeur  of  nature  that  was  in  him.  I  suppose  there  must 
have  been  in  him  a  certain  largeness  of  spirit,  a  certain  sincerity  of 
disposition,  a  certain  breadth  of  moral  constitution  and  inner  life,  t( 
which  reference  was  made.  I  suppose  he  must  have  been  so  organ- 
ized that  those  who  jipproached  him  felt  that  he  was  an  august  man, 
made  upon  a  larger  pattern  than  ordinary  men.  Although  he  did 
not  perform  as  many  functions,  or  have  as  many  social  relations,  as 
persons  that  went  before  him,  he  undoubtedly  was  the  mightiest  of 
them,  and  went  down  deeper,  and  stretched  out  wider,  and  lifted 
himsslf  up  higher.  But  as  we  did  not  see  him,  and  as  these  other 
prophets  are  more  prominently  set  forth  in  the  records  of  history,  it 
always  seems  to  us  as  though  this  eiilogy  was  somewhat  extrava- 
gant.    Christ,  however,  measures  John,  and  ranks  him,  saying, 

"  There  is  not  a  greater  prophet  than  John  the  Baptist:  hut  [mark  this] 
he  that  is  least  in  the  kingdom  of  God  is  greater  than  he." 

That  is,  "  In  that  new  kingdom  which  I  am  bringing  in ;  in  that 
new  kingdom  in  which  the  sweet  moral  nature  of  man  shall  predom- 
inate over  the  harsh  and  acerb  passions  and  appetites ;  in  that  new 
kingdom  in  which  the  supersensuous  faculties  shall  be  enthroned,  and 
the  gross  and  basilar  instincts  shall  be  servitors — in  that  new  king- 
dom, John  himself  shall  seem  coarse."  He  was  a  stern  man,  built 
according  to  the  pattern,  and  the  best  pattern,  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, speaking  to  the  conscience  and  to  the  fear  of  men,  and  vindi- 
cating the  visible  law  and  the  institutions  of  his  country,  and  bring- 
ing home  to  men  the  consciousness  of  their  weakness  and  wicked- 
ness. He  was  an  honored  and  stalwart  and  stanch  man.  But  he 
had  not  the  blossoming  elements  of  grace  and  sweetness,  he  had  not 
the  heavenly  mindedness,  which  belonged  to  the  new  empire  of  faith 
and  love.  And  the  least  in  the  new  kingdom  would  be  greater 
than  he. 

This  leads  Jesus  to  consider,  next,  his  own  success,  as  contrasted 
with  John's.  You  perceive  how  wonderfully  events  fall  out  in  se- 
quence, in  chronological  order,  here.  He  evidently  was  thinking  of 
the  interviews  which  had  taken  place  ^between  him  and  the  people, 
and  of  John's  ministrations  among  them ;  and  he  said, 

'♦  Whereunto  then  shall  I  liken  the  men  of  this  generation  ?  and  to  what 
are  they  like  ?" 

And  then  a  figure  rose  up  in  his  mind.  For  Jesus  was  one  who 
did  not  ask  dignified  things  to  bear  out  feeble  thoughts.  He  had 
such  power  in  his  thought  that  he  could  take  insignificant  thingft 
and  make  them  dignified. 


422  LABOR  AND  HARVEST. 

You  shall  see  in  everyhouse,  children  playing  at  various  games. 
You  shall  see  in  the  corner  of  the  nursery  two  or  three  little  girls 
gathered  together,  and  with  their  tiny  dishes,  playing  "  have  com- 
pany." Or  they  go  through  a  mimic  representation  of  some  other 
phase  of  life.  Now  a  doll  is  sick,  and  the  doctor  is  called,  and  the 
doll  must  take  some  medicine.  And  all  the  expostulations  are  em- 
ployed which  have  been  addressed  to  the  little  lady  herself  at  diffei'- 
ent  times  Avhen  she  has  been  sick.  She  insists  that  the  dose  is  not 
bitter  but  sweet,  and  resorts  to  all  manner  of  gentle  little  falsehoods 
which  it  seems  have  been  practiced  upon  her.  And  so  in  a  variety 
of  ways  the  children  imitate  life.  On  another  occasion  you  will  see 
gone  through  with  all  the  circumstance  of  the  reception  of  com- 
pany. At  one  time  or  another  you  will  see  enacted  in  children's 
plays  pretty  much  all  that  they  have  seen  in  life. 

So  in  the  olden  times  human  nature  was  true  to  itself  Children 
used  to  gather  in  the  open  squares,  in  the  market  places,  and  play 
their  games.  And  sometimes  they  would  say,  "  Let  us  play  wed- 
ding ;"  and  they  would  pipe  and  make  music,  as  if  the  company  were 
going  out  to  arrange  themselves  ;  and  there  would  be  the  litttle  mimic 
procession.  At  other  times  they  Avould  say,  "No,  let  us  play  funeral." 
And  then  they  would  put  on  lugubrious  looks,  and  dishevel  as  much 
as  possible  their  hair,  and  make  believe  sorrow.  Some  would  cry  a 
little,  and  the  rest  would  groan,  and  hone,  and  "  take  on,"  as  the 
saying  is.     And  so  they  would  mimic  a  funeral  scene. 

And  you  have  seen  children  that  would  get  "mad"  and  would  not 
play.  It  seems  that  it  was  just  so  at  that  time,  and  there.  And 
that  is  just  the  thing  that  struck  Christ's  mind.  The- scene  came  up 
in  his  imagination  of  children  in  the  market-place,  where  one  says  to 
another,  "  We  piped  unto  you,  and  you  would  not  dance.  And  then, 
seeing  that  you  did  not  want  that,  we  tried  the  other  thing,  and 
mourned  to  you  ;  and  then  you  would  not  play.  You  would  not  play 
either  wedding  or  funeral.  You  would  not  play  at  all."  It  Avas  that 
distinctive  scene  from  childhood  that  our  Saviour  seized.  And  he 
said : 

♦•  Whereunto  then  shall  I  liken  the  men  of  this  generation  ?  and  to  what 
are  they  like  ?  They  are  like  unto  children  sittinjc  in  the  market-plaoe,  and 
calling  one  to  another,  and  £.aying,  We  have  piped  unto  you,  and  ye  have 
not  danced;  we  have  mourned  to  you,  and  ye  have  not  wept." 

Then  he  made  just  that  application.    "This  generation,"  he  said, 

"  have  been  tried  both  by  things  touching  fear  and  sorrow,  and  by 

things  touching  joy  and  pleasure  and  hope.  John  came  neither  eating 

nor  .drinking.  He  was  an  ascetic.  He  was  bred  in  the  wilderness.  He 

was  clothed  in  skins.  He  fed  upon  locusts  and  wild  honey — the  coars- 


LABOR  A¥D  HARVEST.  423 

est  and  meanest  of  cheap  food.  He  came  as  a  stern  man,  and  laid  down 
the  hxw  to  men.  And  what  did  they  do  ?  Well,  some  followed 
him ;  hut  the  great  mass  of  the  people  said,  '  Why,  he  hath  a  devil.'  " 
That  is,  they  called  him  crazy.  They  used  to  think  that  demoniac 
possessions  were  the  origin  of  insanity.  And  they  said  of  John,  "He 
is  a  fantastic,  insane  man,  and  he  lives  in  the  wilderness,  and  teaches 
and  preaches  these  things  because  his  brain  is  out  of  order."  That 
was  the  fate  which  befel  a  man  who  was  endeavoring  to  impress  upon 
men  pure  morality,  and  all  the  requirements  of  the  eternal  govern- 
ment of  God.  Such  was  the  effect  Avhich  he  produced,  that  they  turned 
away  from  his  message,  and  said,  "  He  is  crazy."  Then  the  Son  of 
Man  came  eating  and  drinking.  He  left  the  wilderness.  He  came 
back  into  civilized  life.  He  dwelt  in  villasfes  and  towns  accordinsr 
to  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  people.  He  went  forth  preaching 
of  familiar  things.  And  his  preaching  was  lighted  up  by  much  that 
was  attractive  and  congenial.  By  ten  thousand  sympathies  he  made 
himself  dear  to  the  people.  And  what  is  said  about  him  ?  '  Behold 
a  gluttonous  man  and  a  winebibber,  a  friend  of  publicans  and  sin- 
ners.' 

We  are  not  to  suppose  that  this  was  the  testimony  of  all  the  peo- 
ple. We  are  not  to  suppose,  as  some  have  rashly  taught,  that  Christ 
lived  so  convivially  that  it  Avas  the  impression  throughout  the  com- 
munity that  he  was  a  bon  vivant.  This  is  the  voice  of  that  part  of 
the  community  that  desired  to  find  something  against  him.  Among 
the  common  people  there  was  no  such  thing  said.  He  did  eat  and 
drink  with  men ;  and  he  ate  and  drank  as  they  ate  and  drank.  When 
he  was  in  the  houses  of  the  poor,  he  ate  their  plain  fare ;  and  when 
he  was  in  the  houses  of  the  rich,  he  ate  the  dishes  which  burdened 
their  tables.  They  made  feasts  for  him  ;  and  when  they  poured  the 
wine  of  the  country,  he  drank  the  wine  of  the  country.  When  they 
set  before  him  the  luxuries  of  the  country,  he  partook  of  the  luxuries 
of  the  country.  He  made  himself  a  man  among  men.  He  fell  in 
with  the  customs  of  the  people  among  whom  he  sojourned.  Nothino- 
is  more  striking  than  how  perfect  a  Jew  he  was,  than  how  rigorous 
he  was  in  his  conformity  to  the  modes  of  life  in  accordance  with 
which  he  was  brought  up.  So  much  of  a  Jew  was  he,  that  he  did  not 
abandon  the  synagogue.  Every  Sabbath  found  him  in  his  place 
worshiping  with  the  people,  as  was  the  custom  of  his  country.  And 
when  he  preached  the  Sermon  on  tlie  Mount,  lest  the  people  should 
suppose  that  he  was  seeking  to  bring  in  a  new  custom,  he  said, 

"  Think  not  I  am  come  to  destroy  the  law,  or  the  prophets :  lam  not  come 
to  destroy,  but  to  fulfill.  For  I  verily  say  unto  you, Till  heaven  and  earth  pass, 
one  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  iu  no  wise  pass  from  the  law,  till  all  be  fulfilled." 


424  LABOR  AND  HARVEST. 

He  did  not  wish  them  to  think  that  he  desired  to  overthrow  tbolr 
old  system.  On  the  contrary,  he  asserted  his  Hebraism  ;  he  declarc>d 
his  faith  in  the  old  Mosaic  institutions;  and  he  did  it  all  his  liu', 
through  his  whole  career,  and  to  the  very  last  of  it.  A  stranger, 
knowing  nothing  of  his  history,  would  scarcely  have  discriminated 
him  in  any  respect  from  a  model  Jew,  so  perfectly  had  he  adapted 
himself  to  the  ways  of  the  people.  He  was,  therefore,  a  man  among 
men.  And  his  enemies  said,  "He  is  a  glutton,"  because  he  sat  at 
meat  with  rich  men ;  and  "  He  is  a  Avinebibber,  a  friend  of  publicans 
and  sinners,"  because  he  went  down  from  the  high  places  where  he 
consorted  with  the  rich,  to  the  poorest  and  lowest  and  most  despised, 
and  consorted  with  them. 

Here,  then,  had  come  the  ascetic  John  and  the  social  Christ ;  here 
had  come  the  ministration  of  terror  on  the  conscience,  and  here  had 
come  the  ministration  of  hope  on  the  heart;  here  had  come  the  rude 
man  of  the  wilderness  that  thundered  repentance  in  the  ears  of  the 
terrified  crowd,  and  here  had  come  the  man  that  dropped  tears  with 
the  weepers,  that  stopped  the  bier  and  called  the  dead  to  life  again, 
and  gave  back  to  the  stricken  mother  her  only  son  ;  here  came  the 
man  that  little  children  ran  to,  and  clasped,  and  climbed  up  upon ; 
here  came  the  man  that  was  everywhere  sought  by  the  high  and  by 
the  low,  by  the  gentle  and  the  humble — and  what  was  the  result  ? 
It  was  said  to  them,  "  Let  us  play  funeral"  (going  back  to  the  image 
of  the  children),  and  they  would  not ;  and  then  it  was  said  to  them, 
"  Let  us  play  wedding,"  and  they  would  not.  They  would  not  take 
the  truth  that  they  needed  to  make  them  better  men,  either  from 
John  or  from  Christ.  They  would  not  take  it  from  one  that  repre- 
sented intellect  and  conscience,  nor  would  they  take  it  from  one  that 
represented  heart  and  faith. 

"  But  wisdom  is  justified  of  all  her  children." 

That  is  the  end  of  this  discourse.  And  with  this  narrative,  thus 
drawn  out ;  with  this  picture  of  the  method  of  Christ's  teaching,  of 
the  way  in  which  he  found  his  subjects,  and  of  the  kind  of  incidents 
which  he  brought  in  for  illustration  to  make  the  truth,  not  abstract 
and  remote  and  systematic,  but  homely  and  most  familiar ;  with  this 
interior  view,  as  it  were,  of  a  portion  of  a  day's  labor,  we  shall  leave 
the  historic  and  descriptive  part,  and  proceed  to  a  few  points  of 
practical  application. 

1.  The  faults  which  men  are  accustomed  to  find  with  religion  and 
with  its  ministrations,  are  symptoms,  not  so  much  of  the  imperfec- 
tion of  external  things,  as  of  the  condition  of  their  own  hearts.  It  is 
true  that  religious  institutions  are  very  imperfect.  None  feel  this 
more  than  those  who  administer  them,  or  are  responsible  for  them.  It 


LABOR ^NB  HARVEST.  425 

IS  true  that  they  who  preach  the  truth  are  very  wealc  men,  ai.d  preach 
with  mauy  errors  and  much  imperfection.     Xone  know  this  so  well 
as  those  who  preach  the  most.  And  there  are  many  in  the  community 
wha  stand  quite  disconnected  from  any  true  re.igious  work,  or  any 
useful  occupation  of  beneficence  or  of  mercy,  and  are  perpetually 
finding  fault  with  churches,  and  with  ministers,  and  with  all  the  va- 
ried institutions  which  have  sprung  up  under  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 
And  they  would  fain  make  us  believe  that  the  reason  why  they  are 
not  better,  is  that  these  things  are  so  poor.    But,  after  all,  the  reason 
why  men  are  not  truly  spiritual  and  Christian,  is  not  the  incompe- 
tence of  external  institutions ;  it  is  not  the  poorness  of  preaching  ;  it 
is  not  the  imperfections  of  the  church ;  it  is  not  that  there  are  so 
mtny  unadaptations  in  the  external  institutions  of  the  religious  Avorld. 
It  is  that  men  have  at  heart  an  indisposition  to  conform  to  that  by 
which  they  might  go  out  of  the  animal  and  lower  life,  into  the  spir- 
itual life.     The  trouble  is  in  the  men  themselves,  and  not  in  the  in- 
stitutions that  surround  them.     They  are  like  sick  children.     What- 
ever the  nurse  may  bring,  w^hether  it  be  of  food,  or  of  drink,  or  of 
some  object  of  amusement,  the  child  pushes  it  pettishly  away.  Noth- 
ing suits  the  child.     It  is  not  because  the  picture  is  not  beautiful ;  it 
is  not  because  the  drink  is  not  cooling  and  palatable ;  it  is  not  be- 
cause the  food  is  not  good :  it  is  because  the  irritable  nerve  is  such 
that  nothing  seems  good,  no  matter  how  good  it  may  be,  and  nothing 
seems  desirable,  no  matter  how  attractive  it  may  be.     And  there  are 
hundreds  of  men  in  every  community  who  refuse  to  bow  down  the 
pride  of  their  nature,  and  who  refuse  to  accept  the  service  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  because  of  the  heart  that  they  carry  in  them,  al- 
though the  reasons  which  they  allege  are  reasons  of  exterior  religion. 
2.  When  men  are  under  the  full  dominion  of  worldly  j^assions 
you  cannot  change  them  by  any  modifications  of  manner.     I  do  not 
mean  by  that,  that  there  is  no  skill  to  be  used ;  I  do  not  mean  that 
there  is  not  a  difference  between  power  and  weakness  in  preachiu'T; 
I  do  not  mean  that  clear  thinking  is  not  better  than  feeble  thinkin<T 
or  none  at  all ;  I  do  not  mean  that  there  is  not  an  art,  and  a  sublime 
art,  in  winning  men,  so  that  they  shall  be  tempted  or  persuaded  to 
leave  their  evil  ways.     But  this  I  say :  There  is  no  thinking,  and 
no  combination  of  arguments,  and  no  skill,  that  can  reach  to  over- 
throw men's  pride,  and  men's  avarice,  and  men's  selfishness  and  sor- 
didness.    There  is  no  power  short  of  the  Spirit  of  God  that  can  do  it. 
When  the  heart  of  man  is  fortified  in  his  weakness  ;  when  it  is  des- 
perately set  in  him  to  do  evil,  all  that  men  can  do  is  to  break  upon 
them  as  the  sea  breaks  on  the  rocky  shore.     It  is  the  sea  that  is 
sent  back,  and  the  I'ock  that  stands  firm.    There  are  scores  of  men 


426  LABOR  AND  HARVEST. 

who  live  for  the  flesh ;  who  live  ixnder  the  dominion  of  the  senses ; 
and  who  yet  live  in  the  full  light  of  truth.  ISTone  know  it  better 
than  they.  There  are  men  that  have  read  every  word  of  Scripture  ; 
there  are  men  that  are  familiar  with  every  argument  and  statement 
in  theology ;  there  are  men  that  have  known  and  seen  much  of  the 
power  of  God  in  revivals;  but  there  is  within  them  that  fixed,  rooted, 
touo-hened  life  of  sin  that  refuses  to  yield  itself  to  any  power  which 
can  be  -wielded  merely  by  the  hands  of  men. 

3.  And  that  which  is  true  of  individuals,  is  true  also  of  com- 
munities. There  are  many  men  who  find  fault  with  reformations  in 
communities,  complaining  that  they  were  not  wisely  begun ;  that 
they  were  not  carried  forward  skillfully  ;  that  they  were  instituted 
by  rouo-h  men  ;  that  harsh  measures  were  employed  ;  that  ther(^ore 
pi-ejudices  were  engendered,  that  men  were  exasperated,  their  lower 
nature  being  excited, — all  of  which  is  true.  It  is  memorably  true 
of.  the  struggle  that  we  waged  for  human  liberty.  It  is  true  that 
if  we  were  to  go  back  and  examine  the  pioneers  in  that  struggle, 
and  measure  their  career,  we  would  have  no  right  to  believe  that 
they  could  have  succeeded.  Nor  do  I  believe  that  they,  as  instru- 
ments, did  succeed.  There  was  a  Providence  of  which  they  were 
pioneers,  which  they  did  not  understand,  and  which  we  do  not 
understand.  There  was  a  purpose  of  God  ;  and  they,  as  it  were, 
were  flung  out  as  avayit  couriers,  not  knowing  themselves  the  mes- 
sao^e  which  they  were  carrying.  But  if  you  measure  them  by  any 
approved  standard  of  skill,  or  any  history  of  success,  they  were  un- 
skilled in  their  mode  of  approaching  the  community.  And  yet,  if 
thev  had  been  wise  as  serpents  and  liarmless  as  doves,  it  would  have 
made  no  difference.  It  was  one  of  those  cases  in  which  the  hearts  of 
men  were  fully  set  in  them  to  do  evil,  and  in  which  lust,  laziness,  and 
lucre — the  three  prime  demons  of  slavery — held  the  hearts  and  pur- 
poses of  men.  No  wisdom,  and  no  moral  po  ver,  could  ever  have  tempt- 
ed them  to  relax  their  hold  upon  their  ill  gotten  gains,  or  to  remit  their 
captives  to  liberty  again.  When,  therefore,  men  said,  "  Abolition  might 
have  come  long  ago  ;  and  yet  the  evils  of  slavery  were  augmented," 
it  was  finding  fault,  first,  on  the  one  side,  with  John,  and  then,  on  the 
other  side,  with  Jesus.  At  one  time  they  were  appealed  to  by  that 
which  was  gentle,  and  inviting,  and  winning,  and  at  another  time  by 
that  which  was  threatening  ;  but  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  would 
meet  them.  They  did  not  want  to  be  met.  John  came  neither  eating 
nor  drinking,  and  they  said  that  he  had  a  devil ;  and  then  Christ 
came  eating  and  drinking,  and  they  said  that  he  was  a  glutton.  The 
Quakers  came  with  peace,  and  they  received  no  better  fare  than 
Garrison,  who  came  with  war.     It  might  have  been  better  or  worse. 


LABOR  AND  HARVEST.  42 ^ 

ancording  to  circumstances ;  but  the  trouWc  was  that  the  hearts  of 
men  did  not  mean  to  give  up.  The  kingdom  of  Satan  Avas  within ; 
the  armed  man  did  not  mean  to  be  dispossessed;  and  nothing 
bat  the  terrific  revolutions  tliat  shook  down  tlie  nation  were  com- 
pet?nt  to  remedy  the  evil  that  was  eating  out  the  life  of  the  people. 
4.  It  will  encourage '  and  comfort  all  those  who  are  laboring 
without  immediate  results,  whether  it  be  for  themselves,  for  theiu 
households,  for  the  communities  in  which  they  dwell,  or  for  any 
great  reformatory  objects  which  are  the  outspringings  of  the  Gos- 
pel of  Christ,  to  know  that  the  two  greatest  preachers — John  and 
Christ,  respectively — looked  over  the  field  where  they  had  spent 
their  lives,  laboring  about  equal  periods  (probably  about  two  year^ 
each),  and  saw  little  fruit  as  the  result  of  their  labors.  Christ  went 
through  his  whole  life  conscious  that  he  was  doing  immediately  but 
little.  He  gathered  no  church.  He  laid  the  foundation  of  no  church 
that  was  to  be  gathered.  He  set  aside  nothing  of  the  ancier.t  sys- 
tem. He  left  that  to  be  corrected,  so  far  as  it  was  erroneous,  by  the 
advancing  force  of  the  new  jiriuciple.  The  disciples  themselves  did 
not  believe  that  they  were  sent  to  found  a  church.  Men  tell  us  that 
the  apostles  did.  Plow,  then,  shall  we  account  for  thL>  fact  that 
twenty  years  after  Paul's  conversion  and  Christ's  ascension,  Paul 
was  n  Jerusalem,  and  the  apostles  came  to  him  and  said,  "  It  is 
charged  that  you  do  not  believe  in  Moses,  and  in  his  institutes. 
Now  there  are  two  men  under  vows,  and  going  up  to  cleanse  them- 
selves :  do  you  go  Avith  them  into  the  temple  and  pay  their  charo-es 
that  it  may  be  a  testimony  that  you  do  believe  in  Moses,  and  in  the 
temple,  and  in  the  institutes  of  the  old  economy  " ;  and  that  for  that  very 
sake,  Paul  did  go  up  into  the  temple  and  pay  those  men's  charo-es 
calling  the  priests  to  witness,  that  it  might  be  reported  of  him,  and 
that  it  might  everywhere  be  known,  that  he  was  not  attempting  to 
do  away  with  Mosaism.  And  is  it  to  be  supposed,  when  for  twenty 
years  the  Christians  all  met  in  the  temple,  and  the  synagoo-ue  was 
the  place  where  they  Avorshiped,  and  there  was  not  a  Chris- 
tian church  separate  from  and  independent  of  Judaism — is  it  to  be 
supposed,  Avhen  this  was  the  case,  that  Christ  had  filled  the  minds 
of  the  apostles  Avith  the  idea  of  an  absolutely  ilew  cliurch,  and  an 
entirely  new  economy,  as  Ave  are  taught  tha'  he  had  ?  No,  there 
was  nothing  of  this  kind.  Christ  did  not  bi»cak  away  from  the 
church  of  his  fathers.  He  left  that  to  be  dealt  Avith  by  the 
process  of  groAvth.  He  simply  said  this  :  "  No  outAvard  form  of 
church  Avhatever,  no  externality,  shall  influence  men."  None  Avas 
conditioned  or  transmitted.  Nor  did  his  private  discourses  Avith  his 
disciples  lay  the  foundation  for  any.     As  a  matter  of  history,  all 


428  LABOR  AND  HARVEST. 

modern  churches  have  been  the  outgrowth  of  the  old  synagogue, 
little  by  little.  It  was  a  hundred  years  after  Christ  was  on  earth 
before  there  were  any  churches  like  our  Christian  churches.  The 
whole  thought  that  the  Christianity  of  modern  times  was  laid  out 
iu  perspective  by  Christ,  as  an  architect's  plans  are  laid  out,  and 
that  the  apostles  and  disciples  were  told  just  how  to  organize  the 
chu.rch,  and  just  what  to  do  in  carrying  it  on,  is  fabulous.  There  is 
not  a  historical  basis  for  a  single  part  of  it.  Christ,  as  a  Jew,  and 
as  a  preacher  of  spirituality,  declared  that  Moses  and  the  prophets 
rightly  interpreted  to  themselves  the  higher  spiritual  life.  And  the 
whole  tenor  of  his  ministry  was  to  develop  the  spiritual  side  of  man, 
and  then  let  it,  by  the  process  of  development,  provide  its  own  in- 
stitutions, and  come  down,  as  it  has,  through  long  -periods  of  timej 
and  thus  reach  its  final  issue,  as  everything  else  does  in  the  great 
scheme  of  progressive  development. 

And  so,  when  Christ  looked  over  his  own  ministry  and  life, 
though  he  came  to  give  himself  a  ransom  for  many ;  though  he 
knew  that  in  himself,  and  in  the  truths  which  he  made  known  to 
men,  lay  the  seed  of  futui*e  history ;  although  he  felt  that  he  brought 
into  the  world  the  new  kingdom,  and  the  higher  life  ;  it  seemed 
to  him  that  he  was,  comparatively  speaking,  a  cipher.  He  gathered 
no  great  bands.  Multitudes  came  after  him,  and  then  divided  and 
went  home.  There  was  no  fixed  church  in  any  such  sense  as  we 
now  understand  the  term  church.  There  was  no  sect,  there  was  no 
school,  there  were  no  great  denominational  influences,  around  about 
hkn.  When  he  died,  how  was  it  ?  There  were  about  five  or  six  hun- 
dred men  who  retained  an  aflfectionate  remembrance  of  him.  They 
were  scattered  uj)  and  down  throughout  the  land.  That  was  all ! 
Look  !  See  the  women  going  apart  to  mourn  and  grieve  in  a  cham- 
ber. Here  and  there  scattered  throughout  Jerusalem  were  those 
who  had  been  most  intimate  with  him.  Look  at  them  walking  along 
the  dusty  way,  climbing  the  hill  westward  to  Emmaus,  giving  ex- 
pression to  their  disappointment  at  his  defeat,  and  saying,  "  We 
trusted  that  it  had  been  he  which  would  have  redeemed  Israel."  See 
how,  when,  at  last,  he  went  out  to  Bethany  and  was  taken  from 
their  sight,  there  were  not  more  than  could  go  back  to  Jerusalem 
and  assemble  in  a  single  upper  room.  They  were  all  that  were  left. 
And  this  was  everything  that  was  apparent  of  the  work  of  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh.  This  was  the  ministration  of  Christ  in  its  im- 
mediate results.  And  yet,  although  there  was  so  little  for  the  sight, 
all  the  indications  of  modern  history  go  to  show  that  there  was  a 
leaven  of  Christ  which  has  been  silently  working,  and  which  will 
work  till  the  whole  is  leavened. 


LABOR  AND  HARVEST.  429 

Are  you  working  in  a  like  spirit,  parents  ?  In  your  cliilclren, 
fractious,  and  not  rightly  organized,  it  may  be,  are  natui'es  that 
must  be  waited  for  until  some  years  further  down,  when  they  shall  get 
the  help  of  their  now  undeveloped  faculties  ;  and  are  you  counseling 
and  restraining  them,  and  praying  with  them  ?  Are  you  discourao-ed 
because  your  labors  seem  so  great,  and  the  fruits  seem  so  little  ? 
Remember  the  labors  of  the  apostles  and  prophets  ;  and  remember 
the  labors  of  the  Shepherd,  Jesus  himself.  Remember  how  he  gave 
his  whole  life,  and  reaped  almost  nothing  in  his  OAvn  time.  He  shall 
see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul  and  be  satisfied  ;  but  only  far  down  in 
the  future.  And  shall  the  disciple  be  more  than  the  Master  ?  Shall 
the  servant  be  greater  than  his  Lord  ?  Shall  we  be  discouraged  and 
not  have  lu\art  to  work  on  and  on,  because  we  do  not  immediately 
see  the  fruit  of  our  labor  ? 

Of  those  that  labor  out  of  the  family,  and  in  the  church,  how- 
many  there  are  that  see  the  church  itself  feeble,  its  communicants 
few,  and  its  influence  in  the  community  small !  How  many  there 
are  who  hiive  spent  ten  years,  fifteen  years,  a  score  of  years,  in  one 
place,  beaj-ing  witness  and  preaching  as  their  Master  before  them 
did,  and  yet  who  have  but  very  little  that  cheers  and  comforts  them ! 
Tf  they  have  been  indolent,  that  is  one  reason  for  it ;  but  in  many 
such  cases  they  have  been  faithful,  conscientious,  godly  men.  And 
why  should  tliey  complain.  If  the  Master  spent  his  life  freely,  why 
should  not  they,  his  disciples,  if  it  please  God,  be  willing  to  stard 
\n  the  field  of  duty,  and  pour  out  their  lives  ? 

There  is  something  higher  in  an  unsuccessful  ministry  carried 
out  faithfully  to  the  end,  than  there  is  in  a  very  brilliaui  and  suc- 
cessful ministry.  Any  man  can  work  when  every  stroke  of  his  hand 
brings  down  the  fruit  rattling  from  the  tree  to  the  ground  ;  but  to 
labor  in  season  an>l  out  of  season,  under  every  discouragement,  by 
the  pow  r  of  faith,  through  years  and  years  and  years,  and  to  die,  as 
Mj.es  did,  without  the  sight  of  the  promised  land — that  requires  a 
iieioism  which  is  transcendent.  It  may  not  shine  nor  illustrate  itself 
on  earth ;  but  it  will  be  seen  in  heaven.  For  there  be  those  that 
are  first  here  who  shall  be  last  in  the  other  world,  and  those 
that  are  last  here,  who  shall  be  first  there.  Many  a  humble  man,  who 
has  had  no  success  in  this  world,  many  a  pastor  in  some  outlying 
church  who  has  labored  long  and  faithfully  without  any  visible 
results,  many  a  poor  missionary  who  has  spent  his  whole  life  in  un- 
requited service,  shall  himself  be  amazed,  amidst  the  amazement  of 
all  that  behold,  to  find  how  high  he  rises  and  stands  in  the  last  great 
day.  He  goes  up  as  one  that  has  nothing  to  carry  him  ;  and  behold, 
'*  he  shines  as  the  stars  that  shone  over  him  in  the  firmament." 


430  LABOR  AXD  HARVEST. 

And  that  which  is  true  of  pastoral  labor,  is  just  as  true  of  lay 
labor  in  churches,  or  of  labor  in  reformatory  enterprises  which  are 
carried  on  outside  of  the  churches.  Those  that  labor  in  the  cause  of 
temperance,  and  those  that  labor  for  the  rectification  of  morals — how 
often  they  are  discouraged  !  It  is  comparatively  an  easy  thing  to 
put  a  broken  bone  in  its  place  again,  and  reset  the  joint  in  its  socket ; 
but  it  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  control,  and  rightly  develop,  the 
enormous  resources  of  pride.  It  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  suppress 
the  jealousies  and  hatreds  and  rancors  of  the  human  heart.  The  man 
that  undertakes  to  rectify  the  times  in  which  he  lives,  undertakes  to 
do,  not  only  a  gigantic  work  of  faith  and  patience,  but  one  that  he  must 
make  up  his  mind  to  pursue,  not  according  to  sight,  but  according 
to  faith.  And  no  man,  I  think,  ever  puts  tlie  plow  into  the  furrow 
and  does  not  look  back,  and  sows  good  seed  therein,  that  a  harvest 
does  not  follow.  If  he  does  not  reap  the  fruit  of  his  sowing,  other 
men  will.  If  you  are  laying  right  foundations,  though  you  may  not 
build  on  them,  other  men  shall,  and  the  topstones  shall  yet  go  up 
with  shoutings  of,  "  Grace,  grace  unto  it." 

Let  us,  then,  take  comfort  from  this  scene  in  the  life  of  our 
Saviour.  If  we  suffer  obloquy,  if  we  are  rejected  of  men,  and  if  we 
reap  but  little  fruit  from  much  labor,  let  us  remember  that  we  ai"e  in 
the  school  of  Him  who  came  to  give  his  life  for  the  age  in  which  he 
lived,  but  reaped  almost  nothing  in  that  age.  He  died  for  the 
world  ;  but  he  had  to  re-ascend  to  his  Father's  throne  and  sit  patiently 
waiting  through  the  centuries,  before  he  could  see  of  the  travail  of 
his  soul  and  be  satisfied. 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON". 

"We  draw  near  to  thee  our  heavenly  Father,  witTi  the  memory  of  thy 
goodness  upon  us.  Ever  since  we  were  born,  thou  hast  comnmiided  all 
things  to  serve  us.  The  heaven  above;  the  earth  beneath  ;  all  the  courses 
of  thy  providence,  and  the  lite  thereof,  which  is  of  thy  pcraee — fhc-e  things 
have  worked  together  to  bring  us  up  out  of  nature,  and  its  grn-'Si; ess,  unci 
ignorance,  and  darkness,  and  selfishness,  into  the  life  of  Clnist,  where  is 
peace,  and  purity,  and  joy,  and  hope,  and  all  gentleness  and  goodties.  We 
thank  thee  for  all  the  ministration  of  the  past;  for  the  knowledge  ^vhieh 
has  been  vouchsafed  to  us;  for  the  influences  whi^^h  have  Ixen  provided, 
and  registered,  and  brought  continually  to  bear  upon  us;  for  all  re.^trauit; 
for  all  incitement.  We  thank  thee  for  our  homes,  and  for  all  that  there  is 
in  them  that  we  yet  delight  to  honor  with  affectionatn  and  revere itial 
memory;  for  their  example  and  faith  that  have  gone  before.  V.^'o  thank 
thee  for  all  the  influences  which  early  came  from  thee,  from  rhy  church, 
from  thy  word,  from  faithful  witnesses.  We  thank  thee  for  all  tliat  fellow- 
Bhip  and  sweet  society  in  which  we  have  been  brought  up. 
And  now,  O  Lord !  we  thank  thee  that  thou  hast  continued  thy  mercies  to 


LABOR  AFD  HARVEST  431 

us  even  unto  this  day.  The  lines  have  fallen  to  us  in  pleasant  places.  "We 
have  a  gc-idly  heritage.  How  nuich  thou  hast  vouchsafed  to  us  in  the  life 
that  we  have  led  in  this  house!  How  many  have  been  the  days  (as  we  look 
back  upon  tliem,  they  are  innumerable)  of  rich  experience!  What  heights 
have  we  ascended  !  What  visions  have  we  beiield  !  Wliat  joj's  have  been 
distilled  upon  us  from  above!  What  weariness  has  been  rested!  What 
doubts  have  been  dispelled  !  What  hopes  have  l)een  liindled !  What  as- 
pirations liave  been  excited !  How  near  hast  thou  brought  to  us  things 
which  before  were  invisil)le!  How  easily  have  we  been  able  to  reach  forth 
and  pluck  from  the  tree  of  life  the  leaves  that  were  for  the  heaUiig  of  the 
nations.  We  ixgoice  in  all  the  past,  and  take  courage,  and  look  forward  into 
tlie  future,  believing  that  the  same  God  that  liath  guided  us  thus  far  will 
guide  us  unto  the  end.  And  as  unlo  a  faithful  friend  we  commit  the  keeping 
of  our  souls  to  thee,  O,  Fatlier!  to  tliee,  O  Redeemer  and  Saviour!  to  thee, 
O,  sanctifying  Spirit !  And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  the  life  which  we  live 
miy  be  a  life,  not  in  t'.ic  llesh,  bur  iu  tlie  spirit.  And  in  the  time  to  come 
may  we  not  fall  behind  the  privilege  of  the  times  gone  by.  May  we  gatlier 
new  strength.  May  we  propose  to  ourselves  nobler  enterprises.  May  we 
desire  to  see  every  thought  and  every  feeling  brought  into  subjection  to 
Christ  Jesus.  May  all  things  shine  in  the  presence  of  thy  Spirit.  Dwell  in 
us,  thou  Source  of  light  and  of  power — dwell  in  us,  that  our  feebleness  may 
be  intoned,  and  that  all  things  which  are  dark  and  doubtful  may  be  purged 
by  the  bright  shining  light  of  thy  countenance. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  forest  upon  all  that 
are  in  thy  presence — upon  each  severally,  as  thou  seest  that  he  needs.  Wilt 
thou  grant  an  answer  to  t'le  prayers  of  those  who  in  burden  of  spirit  have 
come  up  to  thy  sanctuary  to-day,  to  present  their  wants  to  thee.  How 
easy  is  it,  when  it  is  best,  for  thee  to  grant  to  thy  children  answers  of 
mercy!  And  to  those  who  seek  relief  at  thy  hand^,  either  say  that  the 
troubles  shall  go,  or  say.  My  grace  shall  be  sufrieient  for  thee. 

And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  uphold  all  those  who  are  tempted  and  tried; 
all  those  who  walk  in  darkness;  and  all  those  who  seem  to  themselves  en- 
tangled and  lest.  Wilt  thou  succor  them  ?  And  grant,  if  there  be  such 
present  this  morning,  asking  thy  divine  help,  that  they  may  have  the  in- 
timation of  thy  presence,  and  tlie  joy  of  thy  salvation. 

If  there  be  those  here  this  morning  who  are  bereaved,  and  who  look  back 
upon  many  dark  ways  of  troul)le  which  have  fallen  upon  them  continu- 
ously, like  drops  of  rain,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  S(?t  thy  Ijow  in  the  heavens, 
that  they  may  know  that  with  every  storm  there  is  also  the  promise.  May 
they,  in  the  mid^t  of  their  sorrows  and  bereavements,  remember  the  Sufferer 
who,  for  their  sake,  was  bowed  down;  who  carried  their  griefs  and  their 
sorrows.    And  may  they  find  present  help  in  their  time  of  need. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  be  with  all  those  who  are  separated 
from  us  to-day,  who  are  afar  off,  or  detained  at  home.  Be  with  each  heart. 
Renew  to  each  one  Ihy  covenant  promises.  Grant  unto  every  one  a  portion 
of  the  Word  of  God.  As  we  are  liere  sitting  together  in  heavenly  places  in 
Christ  Jesus,  so  may  there  be  borne  tD  them  the  air  and  the  substance 
which  exists  in  fuller  measure  in  heaven. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  all  in  our  midst  who  are 
perplexed,  and  heavy-laden  with  worldly  things,  an  J  who  are  led  only  by 
earthly  wisdom,  may  discern  the  things  tljat  are  right,  and  S3ek  to  carry 
out  right  things. 

Grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  tliy  kingdom  may  come  in  every  heart.  Are 
there  not  those  who  have  long  since  fallen  away  from  their  former  belief? 
And  is  it  not,  at  least,  the  time  of  their  deliverance?    Bring  forth  Spring  out 


^0        3^ 
432  LABOR  AFD  HAEYESTr      p,  ^     ').^ 

the  "Winter  of  many  a  barren  heart.  O  thou  that  hast  power  on  high,  we  be- 
seech of  thee  that  thou  wilt  look  upon  those  who  are  far  from  the  truth  and 
the  faith  of  their  childhood  ;  who  have  been  ensnared  aud  carried  into  evil 
ways;  and  who  have  broken  loose  from  the  instruction  of  former  times.  O 
thou  that  canst  restore  sight  to  the  blind,  and  give  life  to  the  dead,  canst 
thou  not  bring  back  again  to  sight  and  life  those  who  long  ago  lost  sight  of 
God  and  holy  things  ?  We  pray  that  they  may  see  the  error  of  their  ways : 
that  they  may  be  softened  in  heart;  that  they  may  be  stiengthened  in  pur- 
pose; that  they  may  escape  from  the  snares  which  are  set  for  ttieir  destruf:- 
tion  ;  that  they  may  b«  brought  back  to  the  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  their 
souls. 

We  pray  for  all  that  are  teaching  in  Sabbath-schools  and  Bible-classes; 
for  all  that  go  forth  teaching  thy  word;  visiting  those  that  are  poor  and 
needy,  those  that  are  sick,  and  those  that  are  in  prison,  Will  the  Lord  have 
them  in  his  holy  keeping,  and  grant  unto  them  grace,  mercy  and  peace. 
And  may  they,  in  their  smaller  circle,  see  of  the  travail  of  their  souls ;  antX 
may  they  be  satisfied  of  the  work  that  is  prospered  in  their  hands. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  Churches  of  every  name.  We  thank  ih^efi 
that  the-re  is  more  kindliness  one  towai'd  another.  Draw  yet  closer  togother 
the  bonds  that  unite  thy  servants,  aud  show  them  the  way  of  concord  a/id 
of  peace.  And  we  pray  that  the  Gospel  may  be  spread  throughout  aJi  the 
world.  And  m  our  own  land  may  we  see  temperance  prevail,  and  tho  bnh- 
bath  revered,  and  laws  wisely  and  purely  created  and  administered. 

We  beseecii  of  thee  that  schools  aud  colleges  may  come  up  iuto  reinoza- 
brance  before  thee,  to-day  ;  and  that  all  the  Churches  on  our  far  frontier, 
and  throughout  the  scattered  regions  that  are  in  weakness,  may  be  bleat  of 
thee.  And  wherever  thy  servants  are,  there,  to-day,  may  the  bleRsing  of 
God  and  the  strength  of  the  Lord  abide  with  them. 

We  thank  thee  that  the  prospect  of  peace  is  coming  again  upon  the  torn  and 
distracted  nations  of  the  earth.  Make  haste  and  grant  that  the  day  may  come ; 
O,  thou  righteous  God !  when  it  shall  not  be  needful  for  thee  to  stretch  out 
the  rod  and  to  dash  nations  to  pieces  as  a  potter's  vesseh  May  the  better 
day  come  Avhen  '  nations  shall  have  learned  of  thee,  when  tbere  shall  be 
civen  to  all  mankind  the  knowledge  of  God,  when  peace  and  temperance 
and  self-government  shall  prevail,  and  when  cruelty  and  superstition  and 
oppression  shall  have  passed  away,  and  shall  be  as  the  dreams  ol  the  dreary 
night. 

Even  so.  Lord  Jesus ,  come  quickly.  And  to  the  Father,  the  Son.  and  the 
Spirit,  shall  be  the  praise  f  orevermore.    Amen. 


XXVI. 

Ignorance  and  Helplessness  in 
Prayek. 


INVOCATION. 

Have  mercy  upon  us,  our  Father.  Pardon  our  transgressions.  With- 
draw not  the  light  of  thy  countenance.  Come  near  with  blessing  in  thine 
eye;  with  love  upon  thy  lip ;  with  power  upon  thine  hand,  that  thou  mayst 
do  good  unto  thine  household.  We  are  drawn  together  by  thine  in'^iiS tion. 
In  our  heart  we  come,  full  of  need ;  full  of  faith  that  thou  wilt  supply  every 
want.  And  we  desire  to  look  up  unabashed,  with  the  sacred  familiarity  of 
love.  We  desire,  O,  our  Father,  to  stand,  to-day,  in  the  household  of  faith, 
rejoicing  that  we  are  the  children  of  God,  not  knowing  what  that  in  all  its 
plentitude  means.  We  rejoice  that  it  means  more,  than  we  can  discern.  And 
we  pray  for  the  children's  portion.  We  pray  for  that  love  which  is  without 
measure,  and  for  its  all-cleansing  power.  May  we  be  lifted  out  of  the  love 
of  the  flesh  into  the  love  of  the  Spirit,  and  walk  to-day,  freedmen  in  Christ 
Jesus.   We  ask  it  in  the  name  of  the  Beloved.    Amen. 


MEN'S    IGNOEANCB 

AND 

HELPLESSNESS  II  PRAYEE. 


"Likewise  the  Spirit  also  helpeth  our  inflrtnities:  for  we  knoT7  not  what 
we  should  pray  for  as  we  ought ;  but  the  Spirit  itself  maketh  intercession 
for  us  [or  within  us]  with  groanings  which  cannot  be  uttered,"— RoMC 
viii.,  26. 


There  are  two  ideas  of  life.  One  of  them  may  be  called  the 
secular  idea.  It  respects  man  as  a  creature  subject  to  material  law 
— as  a  creature  subject  to  all  the  organizations  and  laws  of  human 
Bociety. 

Prayer,  regarded  in  the  light  of  this  view,  is  simply  supplication 
for  the  things  that  men  need.  Of  that  kind  of  prayer  it  is  said  that 
our  Father  in  heaven  knoweth  what  we  have  need  of,  before  we  ask 
him.  Still,  it  is  proper  to  ask.  We  pray,  therefore,  for  money,  and 
for  health,  and  for  strength,  and  for  food,  and  for  raiment,  and  for 
success  in  our  enterprises,  and  for  defense  against  dangers,  and  for  a 
thousand  things  that  have  relation  to  our  earthly  life,  and  to  the 
conditions  of  prosperity,  and  all  the  affairs  that  are  involved  in  it. 

This  is  the  sphere  in  which  most  men  think  of  prayer.  Most 
men  pray  only  in  the  spirit  of  their  lower  wants,  and  of  their  secular 
temper. 

There  is  a  deeper  view,  however,  in  human  life.  This  world  is 
as  it  w(  re,  a  world  out  of  which  we  are  to  be  born — a  womb  of  time 
from  which  is  to  come  forth  a  new  manhood.  And  in  regard  to  that 
it  is  that  our  text  speaks.  We  do  not  know  what  to  pray  for  as  we 
ought  where  not  bodily  want,  but  soul  want,  or  the  want  of  a 
deeper,  nobler  manhood,  is  concei-ned.  There  is  where  prayer  is  most 
important,  and  least  breathed,  and  where  less  than  anyAvhere  else  we 
understand  how  to  pray. 

Some  examination  of  man's  position  in  this  life  will  enable  yoa 
to  appreciate  how  deep  this  declaration  of  the  apostle  draws.  And 
all  those  persons  who  think  that  preaching  ought  to  be  a  string 

Sunday  Mocning,  Mar.  5, 1871.    Lesson  :  Kom  VIII.,  28-39.    Hyuks  (Plymoulh  Col- 
Ifcctlou) :  Nos.  15,  531,  735. 


434  MEN'S  IGNOBANCE  AND 

of  truisms,  or  superficial  moralities,  or  common  sense  vieics,  as  they 
are  called,  I  take  it  for  granted  have  never  read  the  hook  of  Ro- 
mans ;  or  if  they  have,  that  they  never  touched  hottom.  It  is  the 
profoundcst  hook,  I  think,  of  the  Bible,  and  involves  more  philos- 
ophy in  the  same  space  than  any  other.  And  it  is  not  the  less 
philosophy  because  it  is  the  philosophy  of  experience.  There  are 
deeper  insights  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  of  llomans  into  the  con- 
dition of  man  in  this  life,  and  into  the  future  state  into  which  he  ia 
going,  than  anywhere  else  that  I  know  of  in  an  equal  compass — I 
will  not  say  in  literature  ;  for  there  are  but  few  such  insights  there 
which  have  not  been  derived  from  the  Bible  ;  but  inspiration  itself, 
it  seems  to  me,  is  stronger,  and  deeper,  and  clearer,  in  those  chapters 
of  Romans,  than  anywhere  else  in  the  preaching  of  Paul.  And  I 
think  it  is  strictly  scientific,  and  that  it  will  bear  the  test  of  the  very- 
latest  theories  and  philosophies. 

Man  is  born  into  this  life  a  double  creature.  He  is  an  animal 
complete.  There  are  no  animals  that  roam  the  woods,  or  browse 
through  the  fields,  or  fly  in  the  air,  there  are  none  of  the  higher 
animals,  that  excel  man  in  the  perfect  equipment  of  animalhood. 
Force,  sagacity,  cunning,  grasping,  driving  power,  grinding  power, 
consuming  power — these  man  has.  He  has  all  that  is  necessary  for 
the  maintenance  of  existence,  for  support,  for  defense,  for  accumu- 
lation. Man  has  a  superior  endowment  of  -all  those  energies  and 
passions  and  engineering  forces  which  belong  to  the  animal.  And 
if  he  were  only  an  animal,  he  would  get  along  much  better  than  he 
does  now.  Because,  although  he  Avould  get  along  on  a  much  lower 
plane,  there  would  not  be  in  him  that  inconsistence  and  clashing 
which  now  ovei-throw  his  plans,  vex  his  life,  and  destroy  his  peace, 
and  oftentimes  defeat  the  very  end  of  his  existence. 

But  men,  however,  are  not  born  into  life  simply  animals  :  they 
are  born  into  life  with  the  elements  of  spiritual  manhood  as  well  as 
the  elements  of  animalhood.  Superimposed  upon  this  lower  or 
fleshly  nature,  as  the  apostle  calls  it,  is  a  department  of  faculties 
which  work  directly  away  from  the  flesh  and  from  the  senses,  to. 
ward  things  that  are  impalpable,  invisible,  and  that  can  be  recog- 
nized only  by  intuition.  And  it  is  in  this  direction  that  a  man  is 
essentially  distinguished  from  the  animals  that  are  below  him.  That 
which  discriminates  him  from  all  that  is  beneath  him,  is  the  super- 
sensuous — using  the  term  sense  according  to  the  scientific,  material 
view. 

Here,  then,  is  the  animal  life  in  the  conditions  of  this  globe  ;  and 
astride  of  it  sits  manhood.  As  the  man  rides  the  horse,  so  in  us 
there  is  the  manhood  that  rides  the  animal,  or  the  beast,  or  was 


HELPLESSNESS  IN  PBAYEB.  435 

meant  to.  It  is  oftentimes  the  case  with  unlucky  riders  that  the 
steed  throws  the  rider,  and  tramps  him  on  the  ground ;  and  so  it 
is  in  this  case. 

This  is  the  generic  statement  of  the  double  nature  in  man.  And 
the  Apostle  runs  that  thought  through  almost  every  variation  of 
statement.  Tho.  flesh  represents,  in  his  terminology,  the  whole  brood 
of  lower  faculties,  or  that  part  of  our  nature  which  constitutes  us 
iinimals ;  and  the  spirit  represents  manhood,  or  that  Avhole  class  of 
faculties  by  Avhich  we  are  exalted  into  the  higher  sphere — by  which 
we  become  sons  of  God.  In  a  figurative  way,  he  represents  these 
two  as  in  conflict.  ' 

It  is  as  if  there  were  two  bands  of  soldiers  quartered  in  one  tene- 
ment, having  an  upper  and  a  lower  story.  On  the  ground  floor  is 
a  company  of  brawling,  drunken,  unruly,  brutal,  violent,  cruel  men ; 
and  in  the  second  story,  above  them,  is  a  company  of  soldiers  that  are 
gentlemanly,  and  courteous,  and  humane,  and  well-disciplined.  And 
there  are  three  states  of  affairs  which  may  exist.  The  brawling 
soldiers  below  may  govern  the  house ;  and  then  they  will  have  hard 
times  up  stairs ;  for  their  supplies  Avill  be  cut  off",  and  they-will  starve. 
Oi",  a  part  of  the  time  the  gentlemen  up  stairs  may  govern  the 
house,  and  part  of  the  time  the  coarse,  brutal  fellows  down  stairs 
may  govern  it ;  and  then  there  will  be  a  terrible  conflict.  And  be- 
tween the  attempts  of  those  up  stairs  to  maintain  discipline,  and  the 
attempts  of  those  below  stairs  to  break  down  discipline,  the  place 
will  be  a  perfect  pandemonium.  There  will  be  no  peace  there.  They 
will  be  quarreling  perpetually. 

And  so  the  animal  nature  and  the  manhood,  in  man,  quarrel. 
Sometimes  it  is  the  lower  nature  that  is  in  the  ascendancy ;  and 
then  whatever  things  are  above  it — conscience,  faith,  hope,  all  spir- 
itual tendencies,  and  all  supernal  tendencies — are  at  a  discount.  The 
upper  part  of  the  mind  is  starved  out  because  of  the  absolute  ascend- 
ency of  the  appetites  and  passions — of  pride,  and  selfishness,  and 
envy,  and  lusts,  and  all  manner  of  evil  feelings. 

Then,  by  and  by,  there  is  the  second  state.  The  state  of  resist- 
ance and  conflict.  The  spirit  wars  against  the  flesh,  and  refuses  to 
be  in  subjection  to  it.  And  while  this  war  continues,  sometimes  one 
jiredominates  and  sometimes  the  other.  The  men  up  stairs  to-day 
have  the  best  of  it,  and  the  men  down  stairs  to-morrow  have  tlie 
best  of  it.  Nothing  is  settled  ;  nothing  is  continuous  ;  all  is  subject 
to  chance. 

There  is  many  a  half-formed  man  who  has  no  fixed  habits  of  life. 
and  in  whom  sometimes  one  part  of  his  nature  gets  momemtum  and 
comes  into  the  ascendency,  and  sometimes  the  other  part.     Some- 


436  MEN'S  IGNOBANCE  AND 

times  those  fam;ltics  whicn  are  seeking  to  do  good,  govern,  and  eome- 
times  those  that  are  seeking  to  do  evil,  govern.  And  to  a  greater  or 
less  extent  there  is  a  state  of  conflict  between  the  upper  and  the 
lower  nature,  between  the  manhood  and  the  animal,  in  every  one 
of  us. 

Then  comes  that  state  in  which,  by  the  power  of  God's  spirit, 
and  by  the  discipline  of  life,  complete  ascendency  is  gained  by  our 
supersensuous  nature.  And  all  the  other  parts  of  our  being  are 
brought  into  obedience,  as  it  is  said,  to  the  Ziord  tTesus  Christ.  Or,  if 
you  choose  to  follow  out  the  psychological  figure,  the  superior 
faculties  in  our  souls  assume  control.  And  then  there  is  peace. 
Then  there  is  rest. 

This  thought  of  two  men,  one  of  whom  is  striving  to  do  the 
thing  that  is  right,  and  the  other  of  whom  is  endeavoring  to  prevent 
him  from  doing  it,  is,  in  the  seventh  of  Romans,  carried  out  with 
great  ingenuity  and  particularity.  If  you  undertake  to  give  a  literal 
interpretation  to  it,  yovi  will  meet  with  the  same  difficulties  which 
are  encountered  by  the  commentators;  but  if  you  give  it  a  figurative 
and  pictorial  rendering,  you  will  still  be  in  the  realm  of  common 
sense,  and  will  gain  some  instruction.  In  the  great  strife  of  life  it 
is  the  ascendency  of  the  lower  or  animal  part,  or  the  ascendancy  of 
the  upper  or  spiritual  part,  that  determines  a  man's  place  and  char- 
acter, and  Tor  the  most  part  his  experience  in  this  life. 

Now,  since  this  is  the  structure  of  man,  and  since  the  aim  of 
human  life  is  the  complete  development  of  a  new  creature  stronger 
than  the  old  man,  or  the  animal  man,  consider  what  is  the  way  in 
which  men  come  into  this  life,  and  what  is  the  condition  which 
they  sustain  to  knowledge  in  this  life.  And  that  you  may  not 
lose  the  clue  by  which  I  am  guiding  this  discourse,  I  want  to  show 
you  how  true  it  is  that  we  know  not  what  to  pray  for  as  we  ought, 
and  that  we  do  need  the  spirit  of  God  to  strive  and  pray  toithin  us 
with  groanings  which  cannot  be  uttered.  I  wish  to  show  that  while 
we  do  know  somewhat  what  to  pray  for,  so  far  as  our  lower  needs, 
the  needs  of  our  animal-hood,  are  concerned,  when  we  come  to  the 
higher  life,  to  the  superiority  of  the  higher  manhood,  there  it  is  that 
we  are  so  ignorant  that  the  Apostle's  words  have  an  affecting  real- 
ization in  truth. 

Consider,  then,  since  we  are  by  nature  without  divine  illumina- 
tion and  guidance,  how  ignorant  we  must  be  of  both  the  commands, 
specially  and  personally,  and  of  the  relations  of  those  commands  to 
our  education  toward  manhood. 

In  the  first  place,  consider  how  men  are  born  into  this  world, 
knowing  literally  nothing.     Every  child  has  to  rise  from  nothing  up 


mi:lfli:ssn:ess  in  fba  yee.  437 

to  something.  There  are  none  that  are  born  with  anything  more 
than  a  great  bundle  of  tendencies,  the  opening  of  which,  the  training 
of  which,  the  development  of  which,  into  partnership  and  affiliation 
and  habits,  is  to  come  afterwards.  There  is  not  a  soul  that,  coming 
into  this  life,  comes  knowing  anything.  We  are  born  as  ignorant  as 
are  the  mollusks,  or  as  the  worms  that  burrow  under  the  turf. 
"Whatever  we  may  come  to,  it  is  very  certain  that  we  come  from  the 
very  lowest  conceivable  point — from  zero.  Here,  lying  latent,  dor- 
mant, are  these  mighty  faculties,  both  of  the  lower  nature  and  of  the 
higher ;  and  a  man  knows  no  more  about  them  than  the  hollyhock 
knows  about  what  is  in  it.  As  it  lies  a  seed,  a  hollyhock  could  not 
say,  "  I  shall  come  forth,  and  spear  up,  and  have  all  along  my  sides 
these  wreaths  of  >;eauty."  The  hollyhock  seed  docs  not  know  what 
it  will  be,  any  more  than  the  morning-glory  seed  knows  what  it  will 
be ;  and  the  morning-glory  seed  could  not  say,  "  I  shall  spring  up, 
and  creep,  and  climb,  and  be  covered  all  over  with  bells  celestial  for 
beauty."  The  hollyhock  seed  does  not  know  what  is  in  it ;  and  the 
morning-glory  seed  does  not  know  what  is  in  it;  and  yet  they  know- 
as  much  as  a  child  knows,  that  lies  during  his  first  month  a  palpitating 
mass  of  pulp  on  the  mother's  knee. 

Oh !  how  beautiful  is  the  child  in  the  mother's  eyes,  though  it  is 
a  mere  nothing,  in  its  first  estate  ! 

And  yet,  wrapped  up  in  that  child,  though  yet  unfolded,  are 
twenty  or  thirty  strong,  intense,  immeasurable  powers.  And  when 
the  child,  little  by  little,  comes  to  itself,  he  is,  as  it  were,  a  chest 
of  tools.  And  what  would  you  think  of  a  child's  being  turned  by  his 
father,  at  five  years  old,  into  a  shop  where  there  was  a  chest  of  some 
forty  tools,  of  which  he  knew  nothing,  and  of  his  being  told  to  use 
them  all  ?  He  handles  them  just,  as  it  happens,  and  of  course  has  to 
suifer  for  his  ignorance.  He  snatches  up  one  tool,  and  cuts  himself, 
and  throws  it  down  ago  in.  He  tries  another  with  the  same  result. 
And  he  learns,  t^y  fwid  by,  not  to  take  a  chisel  by  the  wrong  end. 
And  he  soon  {inds  out  that  the  use  of  a  gimlet  is  not  to  pierce  his 
J; and.  And  by  his  mistakes  and  mishaps  and  sufi*erings,  and  it  may 
be  by  an  occasional  exhortation,  he  learns  to  use  those  tools  as  they 
were  designed  to  be  used. 

Now,  a  man's  head  is  a  chest  of  tools ;  and  he  is  born  ignorant 
of  them,  of  their  uses,  of  their  power,  and  of  their  treatment.  Of 
the  whole  loi'e  of  life  he  is  utterly  ignorant,  and  must  be  from  the 
nature  of  things.  He  is  in  the  same  condition,  when  he  comes  into 
life,  that  a  child  would  be  if  turned,  at  five  years  old,  into  a  me- 
chanics' shop,  ignorant  of  the  tools  that  he  found  there,  and  of  their 
uses.     The  knowledge  is  to  come  gradually.     The  only  difference  m 


4  3  8  MEN'S  IGXOEANCE  AND 

tlie  two  cases  is  this  :  that  m  tool-life  there  is  no  complication, 
whereas  in  human  life  there  is  added  hereditary  influences.  No  tAvo 
men  have  exactly  the  same  proportion  and  development  of  life.  All 
have  something  of  everything ;  but  all  do  not  have  it  in  the  same 
proportion.  And  yet,  management,  education,  in  every  particular 
case,  turns  on  the  precise  combination  of  the  faculties  with  which 
men  are  endowed.  Some  men  are  strong  in  reason,  and  are.  compara- 
tively limited  in  passion.  Other  men  have  an  immense  passional 
nature,  and  have  comparatively  little  reason.  Some  men  gush  forth 
like  a  mountain  full  of  springs.  They  are  filled  with  feeling,  which 
jets  out  at  every  rift.  Some  men  are  as  dry  as  a  last  year's  mullein- 
stalk.  They  are  said  to  be  proper^  simply  because  they  stand  still, 
when  the  reason  why  they  do  it  is  that  they  do  not  know  how  to  do 
anything  else.  They  are  never  shaken  by  passions,  because  they 
have  no  passions  to  be  shaken  by.  They  are  never  overcome  by 
temptation  to  sin,  because  there  is  nothing  in  them  to  .be  tempted. 
They  are  sucked  dry,  as  it  were,  by  life  or  birth. 

I  am  not  speaking  of  the  general  responsibility  of  men  to  law- 
I  am  simply  speaking  of  each  man's  finding  his  way  to  his  best  man- 
hood. Every  man  has  the  problem  of  life  to  solve  ;  and  spirituality 
in  each  man  has  to  be  evolved  by  his  own  expansion.  Although 
that  may  be  helped  by  many  circumstances,  although  the  experience 
may  help  much,  the  special  necessity  is  not  taken  away  of  exploring 
the  channels  and  coast-lines  of  each  man's  own  conformations.  By 
thought  and  work  shall  you  come  to  this  knowledge.  No  man  can 
tell  it  to  you.  Neither  can  it  be  revealed  to  you  by  philosophy. 
Even  experience  can  do  no  moi-e  than  hint  it  to  you.  And  there  is 
no  one  that  is  able  to  look  into  you  and  see  just  how  you  are  put 
together,  and  tell  you. 

If  a  man  is  an  expert  horologist,  he  can  take  a  watch,  and  open  it, 
and  see  every  wheel,  and  understand  what  its  office  is,  and  how  it 
works,  and  say,  "  This  wheel  has  such  an  escapement,"  or,  "  That 
wheel  is  balanced  in  such  a  way."  The  variations  are  fcAV  and 
slight,  and  easy  to  be  seen.  But  what  teacher,  what  preacher,  what 
mental  philosopher,  who  on  earth,  can  tell  anything  about  men,  but 
each  man  for  himself?  Who  can  say,  "  The  father  has  just  such  a 
conformation,  and  the  mother  has  just  such  a  conformation,  and  the 
child  must  have  such  and  such  a  conformation  "  ?  Who  can  set 
these  things  down  just  as  you  would  set  down  the  terms  of  a  prob- 
lem in  mathematics,  with  a  certainty  as  to  the  result,  or  as  you 
would  examine  the  wheels  of  a  machine,  without  any  doubt  as  to 
their  relations  and  functions  ? 

No  man  can  tell  this  in  regard  to  another.     Where  a  man  at- 


HELPLUSSI^ESS  IN  FEA  FEB.  439 

tempts  to  explain  it,  his  explanation  is  a  matter  of  guess.  If  he  has 
any  knowledge  in  this  direction,  it  is  empirical,  for  the  most  part. 
It  is  a  sphere  in  which  philosophy  has  very  little  scope,  and  in  which 
no  man  finds  out  anything  accurately. 

Further,  men  are  born  into  the  world,  with  the  sky  above  their 
heads,  with  climatic  influences  at  work  on  every  side  of  tliem,  with 
material  laws,  on  which  their  life  depends,  in  operation  all  about 
them,  with  the  physical  globe  beneath  their  feet,  on  which  they  are 
to  exercise  their  powers,  which  is  the  hone  that  sharpens  each  faculty, 
which  is  the  source  of  their  supply,  which  is  the  shop  in  which  they 
are  to  be  disciplined,  which  is  the  school  in  which  they  are  to  be 
taught ;  and  yet,  how  much  do  they  know  of  this  world  ?  They  are 
in  it  one  year,  two  years ;  and  by  that  time  they  begin  to  find  out 
the  difference  between  fire  and  that  which  is  not  fii-e.  They  find 
out  only  a  few  things  during  the  first  few  years  of  their  life.  Mean- 
Avhile,  that  great  physical  Avorld  is  acting  on  them  all  the  time,  shap- 
ing them,  developing  them,  leading  them  out  and  forth.  And  it  is 
late  in  life,  comparatively,  before  they  have  any  considerable  know- 
ledge of  the  conditions  of  the  material  globe,  which  has  all  the  time 
a  superimposed  power  and  influence  upon  them. 

Still  further,  men  come  into  a  society  which  is  already  cut  out 
and  prepared  before  they  enter  it,  and  which  most  powerfully  aflects 
them,  stimulating  their  passions  and  appetites,  drawing  out  their 
aflections,  winning  their  confidence,  bewitching  their  imagination 
and  touching  their  sentient,  emotional  being  on  every  side.  Men  are 
born  into  a  society  which  they  did  not  form,  which  is  not  interpreted 
to  them,  and  which  most  of  them  j>ass  through  life  without  materially 
understandhig,  except  in  a  mechanical  way.  Men,  endowed  with  so 
many  faculties  of  the  nature  of  which  they  are  ignorant,  and  born  into 
a  material  world  of  which  they  know  nothing,  and  which  is  power- 
fully influencing  them,  are  ushered  into  a  society  the  ten  thousand 
influences  of  which  are  warping  them,  biasing  them,  stimulating 
them,  and  drawing  them  hither  and  thither.  And  yet  they  are  ig- 
norant of  that  society,  and  of  its  social  relations. 
'  Men  are  born  into  the  necessity  of  conducting  business,  that,  like 
mighty  rivers,  has  its  channels  and  its  currents,  and  is  apt  to  sweep 
men  down  stream,  making  it  almost  impossible  for  them  to  cross  it, 
)r  to  go  up  stream. 

These  are  facts.  They  are  facts  which  cannot  be  gainsaid. 
They  are  facts  which  will  impress  you  more  and  more  as  you  study 
them.  The  student  of  human  nature,  and  especially  the  preacher, 
who  undertakes  to  trace  and  follow  out  the  influences  which  arc  in 
operation  among  men,  cannot  help  seeing  that  they  are  facts.  And 
BO  far  from  having  exaggerated  them,  I  have  understated  them. 


440  MBWS  IGNOBANCE  A:ND 

Cor.slder,  then,  how  impossible,  under  such  circumstances,  it  will 
be  for  a  man  to  find  his  own  way  to  manhood.  When  it  is  said, 
*'No  man  can  come  to  me,  except  the  Father,  which  hath  sent  me, 
draw  him,"  men  sometimes  think  it  is  a  very  hard  saying ;  but  is 
it  not  a  saying  of  the  truth  ?  When  you  come  to  think  how  men 
are  born,  how  weak  they  are,  and  what  influences  are  .around  about 
them,  you  might  as  woll  set  a  little  child  five  years  old  on  the  shore 
of  the  Pacific  ocean,  and  say  to  it,  "  Find  your  way  across  the 
plains,  across  the  mountains,  across  the  streams,  across  the  morasses, 
across  everything  that  intervenes,  to  the  Atlantic  ocean,"  as  to  tell  a 
man  in  this  world  to  find  his  way  through  all  the  intricacies  of  life 
to  his  true  manhood.  Could  that  child  find  its  way  except  there 
were  some  one  to  take  it  in  his  arms,  and  lead  it,  and  encourage  its 
little  footsteps  ?  Would  it  not  perish  in  the  great  wilderness  before 
reaching  the  place  for  which  it  set  out  ? 

And  in  human  life,  proud  as  men  are,  and  vain  as  they  become, 
by  their  knowledge  and  intelligence  spanning  rivers  with  bridges 
that  are  wonderful,  boring  mountains,  which  is  strange  as  compared 
with  past  ignorance,  doing  things  in  matter  which  set  them  up  in 
conceit  of  themselves,  the  great  question  that  concerns  every  man  is, 
"How  shall  I  develop  manhood  in  myself?"  That  is  a  question 
about  which  human  knowledge  is  very  limited,  about  which  every 
man  is  sadly  ignorant,  and  which  no  man  has  in  himself  the  power  to 
explain. 

And  here  comes  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  of  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Holy  Ghost — that  enlightening,  teaching,  guiding  influ- 
ence by  which  men  are  lifted  up  above  the  lower  conditions  of  their 
life ;  by  which  there  is  a  path  laid,  into  which  their  feet  are  guided, 
though  they  themselves  may  know  it  not. 

Considei-,  again,  the  case  of  those  who  have  truly  entered  into 
this  new  life,  which  is  ministered  by  the  Spirit  of  God  to  men.  I 
have  said  that  the  natural  man  is  not  able  to  discern  the  things  of 
the  Spirit.  I  have  said  that  such  are  the  circumstances  and  such  are 
the  facts  of  his  existence,  that  a  man,  without  the  influence  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  will  never  find  his  way  up  from  the  animal  spheres  of 
life  into  a  true  spiritual  manhood  in  Christ  Jesus.  But,  consider, 
when  a  man  has  begun,  under  the  influence  of  the  Divine  Spirit  to 
live  this  higher  life,  how  dense  the  darkness  still  is,  and  how  pro- 
found is  the  ignorance  still,  which  hang  around  him,  and  make  it 
necessary  that  there  should  be  some  help  from  above.  How  ignorant 
are  men  of  the  special  methods  of  treating  their  own  faculties.  We 
generally  go  by  empirical  rules — very  seldom  by  philosophical  prin- 
ciples. 


EULPLJESSNIJSS  IN  PEA lEB.  44 1 

A  man  Is  very  quick-tempered.  He  hopes  he  is  converged.  lie 
joins  the  church,  He  goes  back  to  his  household  a  better  man.  He 
knows  very  well  that  one  of  his  besetting  sins  is  that  inflammatory, 
explosive  temper  of  his.  He  wishes  to  overcome  that  temper.  He 
is  a  man  that  makes  a  great  deal  too  much  blood.  He  is  a  man 
whose  nerves  are  rendered  supersensitive  by  the  overcharging  of  his 
system. 

Now,  there  are  two  instructors  that  would  come  to  such  a  man — 
his  moi'al  instructor,  and  his  physical  instructor.  His  physician 
would  say  to  him,  "  Sir,  you  are  a  person  who  should  never  indulge 
in  the  stimulation  of  meats.  Already  yon  ai-e  overcharged  with 
blood,  and  your  brain  is  undergoing  a  process  of  unwholesome  stim- 
ulation ;  and  what  you  call  temper  is  oftentimes  the  cry  of  nature  in 
distress.  Reduce  your  diet.  Bring  your  body  into  a  cooler  and 
calmer  state." 

Then  comes  the  moral  instructor.  He  says,  "  The  way  to  over- 
come your  temper  is  to  bring  it  under  the  dominion  of  some  faculty 
that  is  stronger  than  it."  The  man  does  not  need  to  deal  with  his 
temper  so  much  as  to  take  the  antagonist  of  that  temper  and  give  it 
a  controlling  power.  What  he  wants  is  to  bring  into  ascendency 
that  part  of  the  mind  which  shall  forestall  the  action  of  his  temper. 

But  what  does  many  a  man  do  who  has  not  the  benefit  of  these 
instructors  ?  He  prays  that  he  may  be  delivered  from  temper.  That 
is  very  good  as  far  as  it  goes  ;  but  if  I  take  a  penknife  and  pray  that 
when  I  draw  it  across  my  finger  it  shall  not  cut,  I  do  not  think  that 
there  will  be  any  answer  to  my  prayer.  If  a  man  who  is  irritable 
from  over-feeding,  prays  before  breakfast  that  God  will  take  care  of 
his  temper,  and  then  fills  himself  full  at  breakfast,  I  do  not  think 
that  he  will  have  an  answer  to  his  prayer.  If  a  man  who  is  accus- 
tomed to  the  use  of  intoxicating  drinks,  prays  that  he  may  be  kept 
cool  and  calm  all  day,  and  then  takes  down  a  glass  of  liquor,  I  do 
not  think  that  his  prayer  will  be  answered.  Here  are  physical  and 
psychological  conditions  on  which  temper  is  excited  or  allayed ;  and 
though  prayer  is  good,  knowledge  ought  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  every 
prayer.  Yet,  how  many  Avho  wish  to  lead  a  Christian  life,  and  whose 
temper  stands  in  their  way,  undertake  to  overcome  it  by  methods 
which  are  neither  founded  upon  knowledge  nor  upon  good  judgment ! 
How  many  there  are  who  attempt  to  control  their  temper  by  Avatch- 
ing  it !  And  what  can  a  man  accomplish  by  watching  his  temper  ? 
He  has  so  much  to  do  that  he  cannot  think  about  it  day  by  day,  and 
all  the  time ;  and  he  can  only  now  and  then  turn  his  attention  to  it. 
Watching  a  man's  temper  is  like  watching  fire-crackers  when  mis- 
chievous boys  are  touching  them  ofil     While  you  are  looking  at  one 


442  ME2PS  IGNOEANCE  AND 

here,  another  goes  off  there ;  and  while  you  are  looking  at  that  there, 
anotlier  goes  oif  yonder, 

A  man  goes  into  the  world,  and  there  are  those  little  slow-matches 
leading  out  from  him;  and  circumstances  touch  them  off  right  and 
left ;  and  when  he  is  watching  his  temper  on  one  side,  it  goes  off  on 
the  other  side ;  and  he  gets  discouraged,  finally,  and  says,  "  I  do  not 
know,  but  it  seems  to  me  as  though  1  were  not  a  Christian,  and  as 
though  God  does  not  mean  that  I  shall  be  one.  I  have  made  the 
utmost  struggle  for  five  years,  and  I  do  not  see  that,  after  all  my  en- 
deavors during  that  time,  I  am  one  bit  nearer  to  gentleness  and  meek- 
ness and  patience  than  I  was  before."  But  at  last  the  man  is  sixty,  or 
seventy,  or  seventy-five  years  of  age,  and  the  machinery  of  his  body 
is  much  worn,  and  that  supply  which  feeds  the  appetites  and  passions 
is  greatly  diminished,  and  his  once  fiery  temper  has  become  cooled 
down,  because  he  fee'.s  the  breath  of  the  other  world  coming  upon 
him ;  and  he  begins  to  think  that  a  great  triumph  of  grace  has  been 
wrought  in  him.  And  other  people  say,  "What  a  great  change 
has  come  over  him  !  How  sweet  he  has  become  !  How  calm  he  is  !" 
Why  should  he  not  be,  now  that  he  is  nearly  Avorn  out  ? 

The  wheel  of  a  mill,  not  being  oiled,  groans  and  creaks,  groans 
and  creaks,  all  night  long ;  and  there  are  two  ways  of  curing  it.  One 
is  to  pour  oil  on  it;  and  the  other  is  to  stop  it,  and  let  it  stand  still. 

There  is  an  oil  of  grace  that  will  enable  a  man  to  cure  tlie  infirm- 
ity of  temper,  if  he  knows  how  to  take  it  and  pour  it  on.  That  may 
be  employed ;  or  the  infirmity  of  temper  may  be  cured  by  stopping 
the  wheels  of  life  and  letting  them  stand  still.  Many  of  our  graces, 
late  sown  and  late  reaped,  are  nothing  but  decadencies.  They  are 
the  working  out  of  that  which  in  the  midst  of  our  vitality  and  vigor 
gave  us  so  much  trouble.  But  how  much  do  men  know  of  this  when 
they  undertake  to  cultivate  graces  ?  While  they  are  dealing  with 
generic  thin<i|;s  they  do  not  have  much  trouble ;  but  when  they  come 
to  things  specific  they  are  in  perplexity.  A  man  says,  "How  shall 
I  have  faith  ?  You  speak  of  imagination  ;  and  you  speak  of  rapture 
of  emotion.  Now,  I  am  calmer  and  cooler  than  you  are.  And  I  know 
visible  qualities.  But  how  shall  I  have  faith  to  discern  things  which 
are  invisible  ?  How  shall  1  have  an  imagination  that  shall  flash 
things  out  into  the  pathless  air  as  your's  does  ?"  I  cannot  instruct 
you  how.  I  do  not  know  of  any  man  that  can  instruct  you  how.  A 
man  savs,  "lam  naturally  doubting  and  fearing;  lam  naturally 
skeptical;  I  am  naturally  reluctant  to  give  assent  to  anything  that 
is  not  proved.  Will  you  tell  me  how  to  become  childlike  and  con- 
fiding ?"  1  could  say,  "Pray  for  tl  a:  which  you  desire."  I  could 
say,  "  Seek  it  through  Divine  guidance."  But  what  instruction  would 


EELPLESSNJESS  IK  FBA  YEB.  443 

that  be  ?  "What  philosophic  direction,  what  working  pattern  would 
I  give  him  in  that  advice  ?  How  many  good  men,  how  many  con- 
scientious men,  how  many  godly  men,  know  enough  of  the  mind  to 
change  one  mood  into  another,  and  take  that  and  exalt  it  above  all 
others,  and  so  control  the  lower  elements  of  the  mind  by  the  higher? 

How  little  do  men  knovf  what  is  the  matter  wiih  them  !  And 
if  they  knew  what  was  the  matter,  they  would  not  be  as  well  off  as 
the  doctors  are  now.  There  are  certain  classes  of  diseases  that  doc- 
tors can  cure.  There  are  cei'taiu  other  classes  that  they  can  cure 
sometimes.  And  there  are  certain  other  classes — those  that  are  the 
most  mtricate — which  the  doctor  knows  about  only  when  the  man 
is  dead,  and  he  opens  him  and  sees  what  has  killed  him.  And  how 
much  more  obscure  are  these  internal  facts  of  psychology !  The 
sicknesses  of  the  soul  are  beyond  the  knowledge  of  any  of  us.  We 
do  not  understand  even  the  lowest  forms  of  them.  We  are  all  of  us 
quacks.  And  there  is  more  significance  in  the  term  "  foolishness  of 
preaching,"  than  men — especially  ministers---are  apt  to  think.  There 
is  a  vast  deal  of  moralizing  and  instruction  on  this  subject ;  but  how 
little  of  it  comes  home,  so  that  a  man  feels,  "  That  meets  my  case ; 
that  solves  my  difficulty  ;  that  shows  me  what  my  necessity  is  :  now 
I  know  what  my  tendencies  are,  and  I  can  act  accordingly  "?  How 
many  can  furnish  themselves  with  light  on  such  matters,  or  can 
find  anybody  that  can  furnish  it  for  them  ? 

Still  more,  how  ignorant  are  we  of  the  relations  of  daily  experi- 
ence to  our  spiritual  good  !  ■>  We  are  all  of  us  under  the  impulse  of 
g:eat  natural  affections  which  are  stimulating  us  to  industry  and 
enterprise.  One  man  is  pursuing  success  in  one  direction,  and 
another  man  in  another  direction.  Human  society  is  a  great  room, 
a  vast  workshop,  where  all  lawful  industry  is  carried  on.  Business 
is  a  means  ot  grace  designed  to  wake  up  man's  understanding  and 
ingenuity  and  patience  and  hope,  and  to  bring  out  power  in  the 
whole  inward  man.  But  in  seeking  these  things  which  are,  in  a  gen- 
eral way,  a  moral  education,  one  man  is  overwhelmed  with  diffi- 
culties. He  is  discouraged  He  is  beaten  down.  He  is  driven  hither 
and  thither  upon  misfortunes  and  disasters,  as  a  ship  is  driven  upon 
the  shore  by  winds. 

No  man  finds  prosperity  abounding.  And  how  many  can  form 
any  estimate  as  to  whether  it  is  best  for  them  to  be  prosperous  or 
not? 

If  I  should  consult  the  wheat  that  is  grooving  in  Spring  in  the 
field  as  to  what  was  best  for  it,  ihe  wheat  would  say,  "  Let  me  alone. 
Let  the  ran  feed  me.  Let  the  winds  gently  strengthen  me.  Let 
me  grow  .to  my  full  height  and  size."     But  ah  !  the  land  on  Avhich 


444  Mi:WS  IGNOBANCE  AND 

that  wheat  is  sown  is  over-rich  ;  and  if  the  wheat  grows  to  its  full 
height  and  size,  it  will  be  so  fat  and  heavy  that  it  will  break  and  fall 
down,  and  be  lost.  So  the  farmer  turns  in  his  cattle,  and  they 
broAvse  the  wheat.  They  eat  it  down  to  the  ground.  And  by  and 
by,  later,  when  it  is  allowed  to  grow,  it  has  been  so  weakened  by 
this  cruel  pasturage  that  it  will  not  become  so  rank  as  to  break 
down,  but  will  stand  erect,  and  carry  its  heads  up,  and  ripen  its 
grain. 

Many  men  will  bear  browsing.  They  get  too  fat,  and  cannot 
carry  themselves  upright  and  firm,  and  they  break  and  fall  down ; 
and  the  best  part  of  them  lies  in  the  dirt ;  and  all  that  stands  up  is 
straw  and  stubble. 

There  is  another  field  where  the  wheat,  if  I  were  to  say  to  it, 
"  What  is  best  for  you  ?"  perhaps,  hearing  my  discourse  on  the  other 
field,  might  say,  from  an  amiable  motive,  "  Let  me  alone."  But  ah ! 
that  happens  to  be  a  field  where  the  soil  is  poor,  and  where  it  has 
been  poorly  tilled,  and  where,  if  the  prayer  of  the  wheat  should  be 
heeded,  and  it  should  be  let  alone,  it  would  not  have  strength  enough 
to  grow,  and  would  only  have  a  starveling  life,  and  would  bear  no 
harvest.  So  the  farmer  says,  "  Give  it  ample  top-dressing.  Bring 
in  your  guano."  Here  is  a  field  that  has  need  of  strength  to  enable 
it  to  carry  its  crop  on  to  ripeness  and  perfection.  Here  there  is  no 
danger  of  the  crop  growing  rank,  and  falling  down,  and  leaving 
nothing  but  straw. 

And  so  it  is  with  men.  But  who  kyows  what  is  best  for  him  ? 
Some  men  can  endure  prosperity,  and  some  cannot ;  but  who  can 
discriminate  between  them  ? 

It  is  said  that  there  are  men  who  will  take  a  stick  in  their  hand 
and  go  over  a  piece  of  ground  and  tell  where  a  well  ought  to  be 
dug,  because  the  stick  is  drawn  toward  the  appropriate  place — (you 
can  believe  this  if  you  have  a  mind  to).  The  stick,  it  seems,  knows 
more  than  the  men  do,  and  by  turning  over,  indicates  the  appointed 
spot.  But  it  sometimes  hits,  and  sometimes  misses.  There  are, 
however,  some  places  where  the  ground  is  full  of  springs,  so  that 
wherever  the  stick  goes,  it  never  misses. 

But  there  are  no  such  necromancers  of  the  soil  of  the  soul.  No 
man  can  tell  where  God's  well  of  salvation  is  to  be  dug  in  him ;  aiid 
almost  every  man  tries  to  shield  and  cover  up  that  flood  from  whence 
God  will  bring  out  the  water  of  the  soul. 

When  God  comes  to  one  man,  and  empties  his  coffers,  he  cries 
out,  "  O  Lord  !  not  here,  not  here.  Dig  not  thy  well  here.  Here  is 
where  my  gold,  my  treasure,  is.  This  is  my  lile  !"  But  still,  down 
goes  the  j^ick ;  down  goes  the  drill.  Where  he  needed  it  most,  and 
where  he  wanted  it  least,  there  God  digs.  ^ 


EJELPLES8Ni:SS  IN  FEAYUE.  445 

Another  man  says,  •*  If  God  had  taken  all  I  Lad,  I  would  not  have 
cared  much  about  that.  If  it  had  only  been  my  houses  and  lands,  I 
should  have  been  content.  But  it  was  my  cradle  !"  Oh  !  yes,  that 
was  just  whei-e  God  knew  that  the  well  of  salvation  ought  to  be 
Bunk  ;  and  there  he  dug ;  and  he  made  the  man  deeper  and  richer. 

Says  another  man,  "  Oh  '  if  God  had  only  taken  him  in  the 
cradle  !  But  he  kept  him  alive  ;  and  he  has  been  a  drunkard  ;  and 
he  has  laid  upon  me  heavier  than  mountains.  I  would  that  he  had 
spared  me  the  pain  of  carrying  this  sorrow  all  my  life  long."  How 
little  you  know  what  is  for  your  good.  God  knows  where  to  strike, 
that  he  may  open  in  you  "  a  well  of  water  springing  up  into  ever- 
lasting life." 

Who  knows,  but  God  ?  Who  can  form  an  estimate  for  himself? 
Who  for  his  children  ?     Who  for  his  best  beloved  ? 

When  you  have  lived  twenty  years,  and  thirty  years,  and  forty 
years,  and  fifty  years,  and,  as  I  have,  nearly  sixty  years,  and  find 
that  then  you  do  not  know  any  better  about  these  things  than  you 
did  when  you  began  your  career,  you  Vv^ill  exclaim,  "  How  strange 
this  is  !" 

What  a  thing  human  life  is  !  What  a  mystery  man  i.; !  How 
wonderful  is  the  way  in  which  he  is  thrust  into  life  !  How  marvel- 
ous is  the  blundering  way  in  which  he  gropes  through  life,  like  a 
man  in  an  unknown  room,  awakened  from  sleep  suddenly  in  the 
night,  stumbling  over  everything,  and  finding  out  by  his  accidents 
what  he  learns. 

Now,  then,  let  us  read  and  see  if  there  is  not  something  in  this 
text : 

*'  Likewise  the  Spirit  [God's  great  luminous  Spirit]  also  helpeth  our  in- 
firmities." 

Oh  !  in  that  word  injirniities,  how  large  a  part  of  human  life  is 
included  !  How  much  of  Avhat  men  call  faults,  how  much  of  Avhat 
men  call  sins,  and  how  much,  also,  of  what  men  call  crimes  and  vices, 
will  God,  in  the  greatness  of  his  love  and  mercy,  call  infirmities. 

'  Likewise  the  Spirit  also  helpeth  our  infirmities  ;  for  we  know  not  what 
we  should  pray  for  us  we  ought." 

"  Yes,  I  do,"  says  one.  "  I  pray  for  clothes  ;  and  I  pray  for  bread. 
Christ  told  me  to  ;  and  I  say,  '  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread.'  ' 
Ah  !  but  that  is  low-down  prayer.  That  is  the  animal  crying  out  for 
animal  wants.  And  when  you  come  to  the  higher  thought  (for  Paul 
had  been  runii'.ng  a  parallel  between  the  animal  and  the  man,  between 
the  flesh  and  the  spirit) ;  when  you  come  to  the  other  view  of  the 
subject,  you  have  the  revelation  that  the  lower  nature  does  not  know 
how  Lo  pray  for  the  supernal  manhood ;  that  it  docs  not  know  what 


446  MEN'S  IGNOEANCE  AND 

things  to  add  nor  what  things  to  take  away  ;  that  it  does  not  know 

whetlier  to  pvay  for  more  or  for  less,  for  the  higher  or  for  the  lower, 

for  this,  that,  or  the  other  training.     It  does  not  know  what  to  ask 

for  as  it  ought. 

Now  comes  the  remainder  : 

"But  the  SpiiiT,  itself  maketh  intercession  in  us  [/or  ws,  it  is  here;  but 
the  force  of  it  in  the  original  is  in  us,  or  through  its]  with  groanings  which 
cannot  be  uttered." 

What  are  we  to  understand  by  that?  I  understand  this:  that 
there  is  a  divine  influence  which  is  moving  upon  men,  and  which  is 
developing  itself  in  the  form  of  yearnings,  and  of  vague  aspirations, 
and  of  spiritual  longings,  for  which  we  can  have  no  expression  ;  and 
that  these  yearnings  and  longings  are  the  product  of  God's  spirit  m 
us,  dwelling  in  us,  stimulating  us,  exciting  us.  This  is  the  evidence 
of  his  presence,  that  there  is  that  vital  longing,  that  incessant  yearn- 
ing, for  something  higher  and  better,  "  with  groanings  which  cannot 
be  uttered,"  with  soul  moanings — the  most  aftecting  of  all  things. 

There  is  nothing  that  touches  one  more  than  a  moan  that  does 
not  want  to  moan.  The  shrieks  and  imp] orations  of  suflering  wildly 
uttered,  the  outcries  of  suflering  that  might,  perhaps,  be  bravely 
borne,  shock  us,  but  do  not  touch  us  aflectingly.  But  when  you  t^ee 
a  reserve  of  self-control,  or  when  one  thinks  himself  out  from  under 
observation,  and  you  hear  him  utter  a  suppressed  sigh  that  in  another 
would  resound  out  into  the  proportions  of  a  moan ;  or  when  you  hear 
one  that  is  asleep  moan ;  or  when  you  see  a  little  child  that  with  the 
faintest  cry  catches  its  breath,  then  you  are  deeply  aflected.  What 
mother  does  not  run  to  the  cradle,  and  what  mother's  tone  does  not 
show  how  quick  she  is  touched  by  the  mystery  of  life  that  is  going 
on  in  the  child,  when  she  hears  it  sobbing  in  its  sleep  !  "  What  ails 
the  darling  ?     What  is  it  dreaming  of?" 

The  mother  looks  upon  the  child,  under  such  circumstances,  very 
much  as  God  looks  on  mankind,  whom  he  sees  groping  and  striving, 
and  coming  no  nearer  to  finding  the  way  than  men  in  the  woods  do, 
who  have  no  guide,  who  know  not  the  road,  to  whom  no  house  is  visi- 
ble, and  who  have  nothing  by  which  to  direct  their  course.  God  sees 
men  struggling,  and  hears  them  groaning  toward  the  great  hereafter, 
ignorant  of  how  to  control  the  foi'ces  that  are  around  about  them  so 
as  to  secure  what  is  best  for  them.  And  it  is  God's  Spirit  dwelling 
in  such  men  that  sets  them  to  longing  and  yearning.  And  all  those 
longings  and  yearnings  in  men,  which  cannot  voice  themselves,  which 
cannot  form  themselves  into  confessions  or  supplications,  God  knows 
how  to  answer.  And  he  knows  how  to  guide  men  so  that  the  feel- 
ii^igs  which  they  do  not  know  how  to  express,  shall  be  efficacious 
though  unexpressed. 


SELFLESSNESS  IN  FBAYEB.  447 

Here,  so  far  as  the  unfolding  of  the  text  is  concernccl,  we  stay. 

I  remark,  in  the  first  place,  in  view  of  this  statement,  that  if  this 
welling  up  of  the  innermost  nature  is  praying,  if  this  desiring  and 
yearning  of  the  soul  is  true  prayer,  if  that  is  the  best  praying  v.hich 
has  the  fewest  words,  which  has  the  most  longing,  Avhich  has  the 
deepest  feeling  and  the  least  vocalization,  it  is  a  matter  of  fact  that 
very  few  i)ray  out  of  their  manhood,  and  very  many  pray  out  of 
their  animal-hood.  Think  of  the  things  that  you  ask  for,  think  of 
the  things  that  you  desire,  analyze  your  prayers,  and  you  will  see 
that  this  is  so.  When  you  are  alarmed,  you  pray;  when  something 
threatens  you,  you  pray.  When  your  prosperity  slackens,  you  pray. 
When  danger  impends,  you  pray.  AVhen  ])ain  begins  to  shoot 
througli  you  fiery  signals  of  approaching  dissolution,  you  pray. 
When  your  child  is  sick,  you  pray.  When  trouble  comes  into  your 
household,  you  pray.  AVhen  you  have  borne  your  burdens  as  long 
as  you  can,  you  begin  to  pray.  Your  lower  life  prays.  There  would 
be  no  harm  in  that  if  it  were  only  the  bass,  as  it  were,  to  the  melody 
of  prayer  above.  But  how  few  there  are  who  actually  pray  out  of 
their  higher  reason,  out  of  their  faith,  out  of  their  hope,  out  of  their 
conscience,  out  of  their  love,  out  of  their  whole  supernal  nature ! 
How  few  pray  with  such  intensity  that,  aside  from  the  general 
yearnings  inspired  by  the  spirit  of  God,  they  are  filled  with  the 
Holy  Ghost!  How  few  there  are  whose  hearts  yearn  toward  men, 
towaid  heaven  and  toward  God,  so  that  they  are  caught  up  by  the 
inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  led  to  the  fulfillment  of  their 
prayers ! 

Jjrethren,  our  prayers  are  very  low,  very  sordid,  very  secular. 
They  are  of  the  earth,  earthy.  And  there  are  those  Avho  have  com- 
plained that  their  life  of  pi-ayer  was  limited.  There  are  those  Avho 
liave  felt  and  said  that  they  conld  not  utter  jirayei'S.  Prayers  pre- 
composed  for  them  were  like  ready-made  garments  that  did  not  fit; 
and  the  prayers  ordinarily  uttered  seem  t©  them  still  less  profitable. 
But  they  say,  "  While  I  work,  my  heart  goes  out  in  prayer.  I  hardly 
know  what  I  pray  for ;  but  my  heart  comnumes  heavenward."  And 
otliers  say,  "  When  I  walk  in  the  fields,  I  i)ray ;  and  such  praying  is 
the  only  prayer  that  I  know.  The  momoit  I  kneel  down,  and  the 
formality  of  prayer  is  imposed  U]>on  me,  I  lose  the  spirit  of  prayer." 
And  people  say  to  them,  "There  is  something  wrong  about  you.  If 
yon  were  right,  the  moment  it  was  twelve,  at  noon,  you  would  feel 
jn-ayer  struck  out  of  you,  as  the  hours  are  struck  oiT  by  a  clock, 
and  you  would  go  down  on  your  knees,  and  open  your  lips,  and 
pray."  That  may  be  easy  for  some  folks,  but  it  is  not  possible  for 
me.     I  never  could  pray  so.     Clock-woik  is  very  good  in  its  place, 


448  MEWS  IGNORANCE  AND 

but  I  do  not  think  that  the  heart  and  the  affections  were  made  to  go 
by  clock-work. 

If  when  I  go  home  my  heart  is  toward  my  household,  I  can  ex- 
press feeling  toward  them ;  but  if  I  come  home  wearied,  or  clouded, 
or  obscured  and  bondaged  by  other  thoughts,  I  cannot,  simply  be- 
cause I  have  gone  home,  open  like  a  flower  and  exhale  the  fragrance 
of  affection  in  the  family.  My  feelings  of  affection  do  not  flow, 
simply  because  I  come  to  the  spot  and  the  time.  There  is  a  mood 
as  well  as  an  hour,  which  has  to  do  with  prayer. 

There  are  those  who  say,  "  I  cannot,  even  when  I  am  moved  by 
the  Spirit  of  God,  utter  prayer.  My  prayer  is  prayer  of  thought 
and  feeling."  Do  not  look  askance  upon  them,  as  though  that  were 
no  prayer.  They  do  pray ;  and  oftentimes  that  is  the  deepest  and 
the  most  Divinely  inspired  prayer.  At  any  rate,  while  I  would  not 
dissuade  you  from jd raying  regularly,  at  set'  times  of  devotion,  nor 
from  uttering  prayer  if  occasion  serve,  I  would  say :  Preserve,  as  a 
part,  and  as  the  most  precious  part,  of  your  relig'.ous  experience, 
those  yearnings  and  aspirations  which  have  no  words.  Do  you 
walk  in  the  fields,  and,  looking  up  to  the  heavens,  do  you  feel  that 
something  is  lifting  you  toward  a  higher  sphere  ?  It  is  God  that 
is  drawing  you  upward.  There  is  not  a  tendency  of  the  soul  to  go 
above  the  flesh  and  the  appetites  and  to  lift  you  to  a  higlier  life, 
that  is  not  of  God.  Every  impulse  of  this  kind  shows  that  the  Spirit 
is  speaking  in  you  and  with  you.  Therefore,  yield  to  it.  Let  it 
gush  forth. 

I  remark  once  more,  that  nothing  so  impresses  me  with  the  ne- 
cessity of  prayer,  and  nothing  so  comforts  me,  as  the  conviction  of 
the  reality  that  there  is  a  great  heart  above  us,  doing  for  men  more 
than  they  do  for  themselves,  and  more  than  they  can  recognize  as 
being  done  for  them.  When  I  see  how  men  live,  when  I  see  how 
ignorant  they  are,  when  I  see  how,  as  I  have  attempted  faintly  to 
delineate,  they  wander  upon  unknown  ways,  I  wonder  that  any- 
body is  saved ;  I  won;]er  that  there  is  any  goodness  in  life.  But 
I  do  not  wonder  when  I  think  that  in  the  divine  Providence  there 
is  a  Heart  that  sits  like  a  mother  in  the  household. 

Here  are  children — five,  six,  seven.  They  are  surrounded  by  a 
thousand  implements  of  mischief.  Tlie  circumstances  are  such  as 
tend  to  lead  them  into  mischief.  They,  all  of  them,  are  filled  with 
selfishness  and  pride  and  vanity,  and  other  feelings  of  the  lower 
nature,  which  are  reaily  to  explode  at  the  slightest  touch.  At  the 
merest  provocation  they  would  naturally  get  angry  and  snatch 
and  scratch  and  quarrel.  And  yet,  all  day  long  there  is  harmony  in 
that  little  band.     "Who  chords  it  ?    What  keeps  those  children  in  a 


HELPLESSNESS  IN  PEA  YEB.  449 

penceful  and  happy  state  of  mind  from  morning  till  night  ?  They 
do  not  know  it,  but  it  is  the  forethought  of  the  mother.  It  is  the 
touching  of  this  one's  disposition,  and  that  one's  disposition,  first  on 
this  side  and  then  on  that,  it  is  the  wise  administration  of  love  in  the 
household,  which  keeps  everything  moving  harmoniously.  The 
children  do  not  know  how  to  take  care  of  themselves  ;  and  there  are 
many  little  temptations  to  wrangle  with  each  other,  but  there  sits 
the  mother,  who,  without  any  apparent  show  of  superiority,  governs 
them  in  their  play.  There  is  an  atmosphere  thrown  off  from  the 
mother's  heart  which  keeps  the  whole  household  in  order ;  and  all 
progresses  regularly  and  happily. 

Just  so  God  presides  among  men.  In  the  household  of  faith  his 
great  father-heart  pours  out  love  that  fills  and  stains  the  atmosphere 
more  than  the  sun  stains  royally  the  clouds.  He  thinks  for  us  in 
such  a  manner  that  he  is  able  to  say,  "  All  things  shall  work  together 
for  good  to  them  that  love  me."  He  thinks  for  us  more  wisely  than 
we  can  think  for  ourselves. 

And  he  lifts  us  up  into  that  higher  realm  in  which  we  rejoice 
that  he  thinks  for  others   as  well  as  for  us.     I  think  I  should  die, 
almost,  if  I  did  not  feel,  "  It  is  not  me  alone  that  God  thinks  for."    I 
believe  there  is  a  Heart  that  presides  over  the  a'j;es.     I  believe  that 
God  administers  for  the  human  race.     And  although,  wheu  I  look 
out  upon  the  darkness  of  the  outspread  family  of  man,  and  see  how 
ignorant  and  helpless  men  are,  through  the  many  successive  grada- 
tions, all  the  way  up  to  where  the  light  plays  on  the  dome  of  Christian 
faith,  it  is  enough  to  sink  my  hope  in  the  depths  of  the  sea,  yet  I 
find  rest  in  God.     I  find  rest  in  believing  that  there  is  a  divine  love 
which  guides  the  race  and  the  world.     I  find  rest  in  that  which  mere 
philosophers  never  knew,  and  which  c.  nnot  be  found  out  by  any 
empirical  process  of  living — namely,  that  the  heart  of  God  guides 
everything;  that  he  will  subdue  eve  ything  to  himself ;  that  every 
Tcnee  shall  hoio^  and  every  tongue  confess  that  Jesus  is  the  Lord  to 
the  glory  of  God.     Blessed  truth  !     Pluck  from  me  the  thouglit  of  a 
Father  God,  and  of  a  loving  Heart  that  cai-ries  power,  and  that 
knows  how  by  pain  and  joy  alike  to  build  up,  cliastise  and  guide ; 
take  me  away  from  that  central  thought,  and  the  whole  world  would 
collapse,  and  there  would  be  no  more  comfort  in  life  for  me.    I  would 
go  in  despair  to  them  that  dig  graves,  and  say,  "  Hide  me ;  for  life 
is  too  heavy,  and  its  clouds  are  too  murky,  and  its  sorrows  are  too 
many."     But  if  God  lives,  and  his  name  is  love,  and  his  government 
is  infinite,  and  1  may  believe  that  out  of  darkness  he  will  bring 
light,  and  that  all  things  at  last  shall  praise  him,  then  I  Avill  yet 
with  cheer  carry  forward  my  laboi*,  and  will  bear  my  burdens  Avith- 


450  MUN'S  IGNOBANCE  AND 

out  complaint.  For  I  sliall  know  that  however  dark  the  cloud  may 
be,  behind  it  is  light.  Clouds  and  darkness  are  round  about  him: 
righteousness  and  judgment  are  the  habitation  of  his  throne. 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SER:\[0X. 

Our  Heavenly  Father,  we  rejoice  that  thou  knowest  what  we  have  need 
of— food  and  raiment  and  shelter;  all  providential  mercies.  The  neces- 
sities which  spring  from  our  outward  life  are  before  thee;  and  thou  Jiast  or- 
dained the  forces  of  nature;  and  they  are  fuifilUng  thy  will  perpetuiilly. 
Tiiere  is  light  for  the  eye,  and  soun  1  for  the  ear,  and  breath  fur  the  life; 
and  all  tlie  sources  of  men's  prosperous  life  are  at  hand  ;  and  we  flourish 
in  body,  and  are  made  continually  rich  and  happy  by  thy  goodness  to  us. 
But  how  shall  wo  be  fed  with  that  other  bread  ?  How  shall  we  live  in  that 
deeper  life  ?  IIow  shall  we  know  what  we  ne.d  there?  How  shall  we  ask 
acceptably  except  by  the  inbrr>athing  of  thy  spirit.  Guide,  then,  hy  the  Holy 
Spirit,  our  thoughts  an3  our  fi-elings,  and  g^ve  expression  to  those  nameless 
desires  which  rise  so  often  within  us.  And  we  beseech  of  thee,  O  Lord  our 
God  1  that  we  may  know  how  to  aspire  upward,  by  thy  bkssed  S|)irit,  to- 
ward all  things  which  are  pure,  and  all  things  which  are  excellent,  and  all 
things  which  are  in  symmetry,  and  all  things  which  are  like  to  thee,  and 
which  shall  bring  thee  into  accord  with  us. 

"Webesetchof  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  same  compassion  upon  us 
which  thou  hast  in  our  vain  and  aimless  struggle,  in  all  useless  suffering,  and 
in  all  that  chastisement  of  sufferng  which  is  made  needful  by  our  vagrancy. 
In  our  mistake  and  our  sin,  still  deal  with  us  tenderly  In  influite  patience 
thou  hast  dealt  with  the  world ;  and  if  it  is  to  be  saved,  it  must  needs  be  by 
that  same  patience  si  ill  unrolled  ;  still  carrying  forward  the  race  in  the  midst 
of  bliudness  and  ignorance  and  helplessness. 

O  Lord  !  our  help  is  from  thee.  Prom  thee  come  life  and  light.  From 
thee  comes  power.  From  thee  come  all  motive  and  instruction.  And  we 
look  to  thee  for  that  inward  light  and  guidance  by  which  alone  we  shall  ever 
become  the  sons  of  God. 

"We  than  k  thee  thut  there  are  so  many  who  have  begun  this  life  ;  and  though 
none  have  it  yet  royally  within  the:n,  we  thank  thee  that  there  are  so  many 
who  begin  to  know  something  of  the  spiritof  adoption;  who  are  able  to  draw 
near  to  thee  with  humble  boldness ;  who  live  in  the  consciousness  of  thy 
sympathy  for  them  ;  who  are  able  from  day  to  day  to  cast  their  care  upon 
thee;  who  are  able  from  day  to  day  to  live  in  the  spirit  of  children  that 
trust  and  love.  And  we  thank  thee  that  there  a  e  so  many  added  to  them 
from  time  to  time.  Increase  the  number,  we  beseech  of  thee,  of  those  that 
are  in  spirit  and  temper,  in  life  and  cha»'acter,  sons  of  God. 

And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  make  the  truth  powerful  upon  the  hrarts  of 
all.  May  those  t^at  are  living  in  a  low  estate,  far  from  God,  and  in  outward 
righteousness,  be  greatly  quickened ;  and  may  their  desires  be  deepened,  and 
their  life  lifted  up  to  a  hiurher  and  nobler  plane. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  the  truth,  to-night,  may 
reach  the  hearts  of  those  who  are  not  followers  of  the  Lord ;  who  seek  their 
own  way ;  who  fulfill  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  ;  who  live  tor  the  pride  of  the  ey'o 
aud  the  vanity  of  the  heart— for  transient  things;  things  that  perish  in  tiie 
using;  things  that  cannot  go  with  thsm  further  than  the  grave,  and  that 


nELPLi:ssNi:ss  in  pea  yeb.  45 1 

must  be  lef b  behind  when  their  freed  spirits  go  forth  into  the  eternity  of 
their  existence.  Grant  that  there  may  be  very  serious  thoughts  by  serious 
minds  here  to-night.  Grant  tliat  many  may  be  quiclieued  to  ask  for  their 
own  souls'  welfare,  and  to  know  how  it  faros  with  thera.  And  since  thou  art 
sitting  upon  the  raedi  itorial  throne ;  since  thou  art  merciful  and  forgiving, 
may  none  be  unwilliug  to  confess  their  sin.  May  every  one  be  willing  to 
know  the  thing  that  is  within  him— the  evil  heart  of  unbelief,  the  enmity  of 
the  flesh  and  of  the  spirit,  to  the  Son  of  God.  And  we  beseech  of  thee  that 
there  may  be  heart-searchings  and  turnings,  on  the  part  of  those  who  now 
are  in  darliness  and  wind  and  flre  and  flood,  from  those  devouring  elements. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  all  those  who 
labor  in  our  midst,  and  those  who  go  forth  among  the  poor  and  needy,  to 
do  the  worlis  of  Christ  upon  their  hearts.  More  and  more  accompany  them. 
Ana  grant,  w<^  pray  thee,  that  the  light  of  thy  countenance  and  of  love  may 
win  many  and  many  to  the  knowledge  of  that  Source  of  love  whom  we 
worship. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  thy  churches  of  every  name.  Unite 
them  together  more  and  more  in  a  trua  divine  spirit.  And  may  the  things 
which  divide  us  seem  of  less  and  less  account,  and  the  things  which  unite  us 
become  more  and  more  important  in  our  estimation.  Aud  at  last  may 
there  be  harmony  throughout  the  whole  world.  And  may  the  church  set 
the  example  in  this  great  worlc  of  harmonization.  And  we  pray  that  there 
may  be  a  time  wlien  there  shall  not  be  warrings  among  thy  people,  nor 
among  nations  ;  when  ignorance  shall  be  oliased  away  Iiy  knowledge  ;  when 
the  true  faith  shall  take  the  place  of  superstition  ;  \7hen  all  power  shall  be 
in  rightful  hands  ;  when  all  men  shall  be  too  just  ro  oppress,  and  when  all 
men  shall  be  too  strong  to  be  oppressed,  and  when  all  the  earth  shall  be 
filled  with  gladness  and  purity  and  peace.  Even  so,  Lord  Jesus,  come 
quickly.  Aud  to  the  Father,  the  Sou,  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  ever- 
lasting.   Anicn. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SER3I0N. 

Our  Father,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  will  bless  the  word  which  has 
been  spoken;  and  grant  that  it  may  arouse  in  us  a  more  earnest  desire  to  bo 
led  of  God.  May  we  not  seek  to  shield  our  hearts  from  the  light  that  is 
shining  from  within.  May  we  desire,  above  all  things,  to  be  the  children  of 
tlie  Spirit.  May  we  learn  not  to  lean  upon  pride,  nor  to  trust  in  our  conceit. 
May  we  learn  to  lean  upon  thee.  Without  thee  we  can  do  nothing;  we  are 
orphans,  fatherless.  Lord  Jesus,  lead  us  to  the  Father.  Holy  Spirit,  open 
our  understandinjr,  and  our  inward  life  and  light,  and  bring  us  to  that  su- 
pernal manhood,  by  which  we  shall  be  called  rightfully  the  children  of  God. 
Liad  us  Tv^liile  webve;  appoint  our  way;  apportion  our  burdens  and  our 
discipline.  O,  stand  thou  Beloved  One,  and  look  forth  upon  us  from  the 
Heavenly  gale,  clearer  than  the  pearl,  brighter  than  the  golden  street, 
sweeter  tlian  all  the  voices  that  call,  saying  Come.  Thou  art  to  us,  O,  Saviour 
of  tlie  soul !  the  Knowing  that  guide*  the  unknowing.  Stand  tliou  wailing 
for  us  till  our  ti"ie  sliall  come,  till  thy  heart  needs  us;  then  send  the  welcome 
messenger  and  call  tliy  children  home.  Aud  in  thy  i)resence,  when  we  shall 
see  the(!  as  thou  art,  and  know  as  we  are  known,  wi;  will  ca>t  our  crowns  at 
thy  feet,  saying  "Not  unto  us,  not  unto  us,  but  uuto  thy  name  be  all  the 
glory,  forever  aud  ever."    Amen. 


> 


j"]'""'""    ['"■"log'tiil    Seminatv-Spcer    Lihr.iry 


1    1012  01092  8424 


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